


To Build Something New

by BitterTori



Category: Prospect (2018)
Genre: F/M, Mild Blood, Mild Language, Post-Canon, a bit of found family for flavor, just making up weird scifi medicine as i go, why dont you listen to 70s turkish prog rock and think about space travel and maybe youll calm down
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:01:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 40,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27811936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BitterTori/pseuds/BitterTori
Summary: "If we hold that equivalent exchange persists in this space then we must give something of ourselves in order to build something new..."Overworked and understaffed at the end of her last slingback out to Bakhroma Green, the Chief Medical Technician for Kaslo Freighting hauls herself out to what had better be the line's final pickup. It's only supposed to be a routine check, making sure no one's dead or dying in a way that might reflect poorly on the corp's reputation. But the people inside the pod are nothing like she's expecting, wounded in ways beyond her capacity to heal. She isn't one to get attached, but...there's something about the cagey, clever teenager and the wily, charismatic prospector who definitelyisn'tthe man he's supposed to be.But she isn't all she claims to be, herself. And maybe, in finding a way to help them mend what's been broken, they might just help her do the same.
Relationships: Ezra (Prospect 2018)/Original Character(s)
Comments: 25
Kudos: 46





	1. The Gates of Kevva

**Author's Note:**

> This absolutely is not what I've been meaning to work on lately; but I made the mistake(?) of watching the weird scifi western that'd been sitting in my queue for a while, and ended up completely blown away by this movie and the performances in it.
> 
> And, like I always do when I enjoy a piece of media, I immediately started conjuring up a Black lady OC who gets to kiss somebody in it. And then I jotted down a couple ideas and scenes and then I got carried away and next thing I knew, I had the makings of another fic and an urgent desire to get it written out as soon as possible.
> 
> Anyway, all that's to say that I don't really know what I'm doing here but I'm just trying to have fun with it. I'm still planning to focus more on my original work these days, but I'm also trying not to look the inspiration gift horse in the mouth, so I'll be updating this story whenever I can. As always, feedback is deeply appreciated and highly motivational, so please let me know what you think, and enjoy!

If these past months have taught him anything, it’s that he has far, far less control over his own fate than he had once so foolishly believed.

All the same, Ezra’s usually at least marginally more aware of his surroundings than this. He isn’t sure where he is, or why, or how he got there. He doesn’t seem to be moving, which seems promising, though he’s not entirely certain why he thinks that. He knows he’s in pain, but that’s been true for so long, now, it scarcely seems to matter.

At least, it _didn’t_ , until his pain is joined by a sudden, sharp sting, and then a fierce surge of cold like someone's pouring ice water directly into his veins. He snaps his eyes wide, gasping, jolting in his seat, struggling to get away from the bitter cold even after it’s ebbed away into a gentle warmth, soothing him from the inside out and ushering his pain away, somewhere it can’t touch him. He blinks, panting, trying to take stock of himself.

His arm is gone. He remembers that, now, and wonders how he'd managed to forget. He knows he should be devastated by the loss, but the warmth is too good and he can’t quite muster much more than a mild irritation. He appears to be inside a drop pod, but not one he recognizes. There’s a...person—a woman, perhaps—crouched before him, a band of light limning the outline of a face he doesn’t recognize, either. They’re saying something, he can see their dark, full lips moving, and the sight is enchanting but the words are senseless, his ears unable to grasp onto them and wrangle them into meaning.

He’d _thought_ this was a drop pod, at any rate; but his pain has gone, and there’s a haloed vision of beauty kneeling between his legs, and that can only mean one thing. He doesn’t remember much of what’s happened to bring him here (and likely that's for the best), but the Prospector’s Prayer is engraved on his very heart and memory alike, and he still knows the words. “If I’ve found my way, at last, to Kevva’s gates,” he grinds out, his jaw strangely stiff and difficult to manage, “I...most humbly beg your mercy.”

“I’m glad to say you’re still in the land of the living,” the Kyrie says, her voice seeming to drift to him from across a great chasm. “And I mean to keep you here a while longer, so try to keep those eyes open for me.”

Ezra heaves out an unsteady breath. “You’ve not come...for my soul, sweet Kyrie?”

“Not just yet,” the woman says, and, with a squint to help him along, he notices that there are scissors in her hand, that she’s cutting away at the remains of his jumpsuit with smooth, practiced slices, exposing his bloodstained undershirt. What he’d thought a crown of light is, in fact, a yellow headband, holding back dark curls of hair that’ve fallen loose from a thick braid. The band and hair look soft and clean in a way he hasn’t seen in ages, and he wants to touch them—but he tries to reach with an arm that isn’t there.

“I’m Chief MedTech Stone,” the not-an-angel is saying, cutting a hole in his undershirt now, revealing the bulge of patch cream in his chest. He wants to tell her it’s the only one he has, but then he remembers there was already a hole in it, remembers he’s been _stabbed_ , and she likely can’t ruin the shirt much further than that. “You’re back on the Kaslo freighter, and we’re going to get you all sorted out.”

He heaves another breath, this one a tick steadier than the last. He feels... _good._ Not strong, not capable, not able to stand from where he’s seated, even, but better than he has in far longer than he can remember. “You’re..sure it’s not Kevva?”

“I am,” she says firmly. She’s frowning at the patch, poking at the skin around it, and hooks her fingers in the fabric of the shirt. When she lifts up the scissors again, he’s able to remember the arm this time and instead lays his left hand on her wrist to stop her.

“It’s all I have,” he tells her, and she nods and sets the scissors down.

“Off it comes, then.”

She strips him of the shirt with surprising ease, when there’s little he can do to help her along. He imagines this is made easier with only the one arm to maneuver around, and the thought makes him smile.

The smile is gone in a moment, though; she sprays something onto his chest, and no matter what quality of painkiller she must’ve given him, he can still feel the unpleasant tingle of the patch cream dissolving. Even worse, he can hear the sound of it happening, can _smell_ the acrid bite of blood and rot inside him. The MT curses under her breath, grabs a bottle of something she tips into her palm, and shoves the handful of candy-colored scrubbers into his mouth.

“ _Chew_ ,” she orders, and he obeys—because, if nothing else, it gives him a reason to grind his teeth down hard and bite back a shout as she flushes the cavity in his chest. The fizzing of nanobots along his tongue and gums, activated by his own saliva, is almost a pleasant distraction from the new smell of the disinfectant now seeping from his wound.

Her face is drawn tight, but the MT is efficient, wiping away the excess fluid before it can trickle down his skin. “Can you feel that?” she asks, as she peels the edges of the wound apart.

He thinks he can, because he’s watching her do it, but there should definitely be some pain involved with that and he feels none, so he shakes his head and grinds out, “No,” around the half-swallowed mouthful of scrubbers. She'd fed him a _lot_ , and he tries not to wonder whether it’d been done out of an abundance of caution, or if he actually needs so many. The latter seems far more likely.

He hadn’t paid enough attention to her—or, at least, not to her _eyes_. The left is, evidently, a high-quality implant, since it suddenly emits a steady beam of light that lets her peer directly inside his wound. She curses again and blinks twice, and the light winks out, and she looks up at him. How had he not noticed? Her left eye is a dull gray, while the right is such a vivid mingling of brown and green, chasing one another around her pupil but never quite blending into hazel, that she might’ve plucked Bakhroma’s moon right out of the sky and swapped them out.

“There’s still a bit of black in here,” she’s telling him, her expression stern but steady, her voice calm. “I’m going to cut it out, but I need you to stay still for me. If you feel anything, I want you to tell me; but I also want you to look up at the roof and not at what I’m doing, so I know for sure you feel it and it’s not just your brain responding to what it sees. Does that sound like a plan?”

He swallows down the rest of the scrubbers, and nods. The instant he sees the scalpel in her hand, he takes a deep breath and lets his head fall back, staring up at the roof of the pod. His vision’s a little blurry, so he closes his eyes and releases the breath slowly.

“That’s good,” she says, sounding unconcerned, her voice slow and rhythmic and soothing. “Take another deep breath for me? Yeah, just like that. You’ve got some dust in these lungs, but it sounds like the scrubbers are doing their job. You’re gonna be just fine. Do you feel anything?”

He frowns, squeezing his eyes shut, trying to focus. _Does he?_ He still feels warm all over and sort of... _gooey_ in his joints, but that’s likely just the painkiller. There is a strange sensation in his chest, though. “There’s a...pressure,” he tells her.

“Good,” she says, and he hears something snap, and then a clink of metal on metal. “Because I’m all done.”

He rolls his head back down, stares in fascination as she taps a blackened bit of his own gristle off her scalpel and into a small, round container. “...Oh.”

She nods her head, snaps the container shut, and meets his eye again. “Let’s get you gelled up.”

The biogel she fills his chest with is blue and cold, though she assures him it’ll warm quickly, and then it does. It’s been a long time since he’s seen any; the stuff is far more conducive to healing than the patch cream that comes in the field kits, but it can’t make a seal that holds strong enough to keep the dust out. Here onboard a freighter, though, there’s no need for anything more secure than a patch of sterile gauze taped to his skin, and then the MedTech sits back, rolling a pair of gloves off her hands.

“Alright. You and I have a bit more work to do, but for now you’re stable, so I’m going to take a moment to check on your daughter. Alright?”

“My..?” he groans, wracking his brain. _Daughter?_ Does he have one of those? He’s pretty sure he doesn’t, leastwise not one he’s been told about—and while he hasn’t always been as careful as he ought, he’s fairly certain his dalliances all ended amicably enough that someone might have informed him if there had been a...

“ _Cee!_ ” The memory crashes through him, and he tries to sit up, gasping, “ _Where— Where is—_ ”

There’s _two_ sets of hands pressing him back into the seat, and the face of that young, precious, _blessed_ girl swims into his narrow view. “I’m here,” Cee says, reassuring. “I’m okay.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” the dark-haired MT says, but not unkindly. Her hands smooth along his chest like the light pressure will seal him into his seat—and, at least with how heavy his body feels in the wake of that burst of panic, maybe it will. “You sit tight, Mr. Hayes. We’ll just be a minute.”

 _Hayes_... Was that Cee’s surname? She’d never mentioned one, and he’d certainly never offered up his own, neither. And the Tech thought it was his, too, thought _he_ was her father. Her father, the man he’d killed. What was it... Damien? No, Da _mon_. His memory was only just starting to trickle up toward the forefront of his mind, but he needed to get it back fully if they were going to avoid being caught unawares by this freighter’s Chief MedTech.

He swallows hard, still tasting the metallic tang of scrubbers in his mouth (though at least he doesn’t feel them in there anymore), and looks down at himself—at the patch on his chest and the stump of his arm, his pale skin beaded with sweat, smudged with dirt and grease and worse—then has to turn away. It's certainly not the best he's ever looked, though likely not the worst, either. But right now, with the painkiller keeping his awareness cocooned in an easy, distant bubble, it looks too much like someone _else’s_ body, and he can’t quite bear the sight.

He lets his head loll, and looks to Cee instead. She’s such a little thing, he realizes, watching her answer the older woman’s questions, nodding as her finger is pricked for a blood sample, shaking her head as the MT shines the light of that implant into her eyes. Young, and tiny, and she’d come _back_ for him—after he’d told her to leave him behind; after he’d actually considered, for however brief an instant, leaving her to the Sater; after he’d killed her father. And for _what?_ Not because he deserved to be saved, clearly. Not even because she needed him to pilot the pod back to the freighter, since he’d been in no position to help and she’d done it all on her lonesome regardless.

Watching her then, watching as the Tech dissolves a scant few scrubbers into a cup of clear water and hands it to her to drink, he supposes her saving his life had nothing at all to do with him. He’d done nothing whatsoever to earn it. She’d done it because _she_ is good.

And he swears to himself, right then and there, that he’s going to make sure she never has cause to regret it.

MT Stone pats her shoulder with a nod, and then both women turn and step closer to him again. Cee settles into the other seat, still sipping her water; she meets his eyes, and the corners of her mouth quirk up in the barest hint of a smile. Whatever Stone had said to her, it clearly had relieved some burden off her soul, and he finds himself unfathomably grateful.

“ _Thank you, little bird,_ ” he breathes, and she nods her head in response.

“If you can sit forward a bit,” the MedTech begins, sliding on a fresh pair of gloves and settling back into the space between his legs, “I’d like to take a look at this amputation.”

With her help, he manages to scooch his ass back into the seat and leverage his torso forward, twisting at the waist and resting his remaining elbow on the armrest to keep himself steady. It turns him away from Cee, but he isn’t sure he wants to see the expression on her face as the MT gets to work, carefully dissolving the patch cream bit by bit.

It can’t reveal a pleasant sight, but the woman makes no mention, and the movements of her hands are sure and certain as she manipulates his shoulder joint and gets him where she needs him. He can feel the tingle of disinfectant again, and maybe it’s that he’s felt it before and maybe it’s that this wound has had more time to heal, but it’s not as upsetting the second time around.

MT Stone hums softly, thoughtfully, and he doesn’t turn to look because he doesn’t want to see it, but out of the corner of his eye he catches the glare off the light of her optical implant. “It's a clean cut,” she murmurs, so softly he thinks she’s talking to herself until she asks, “you do this yourself?”

Ezra clears his throat, not sure when it had gone so tight, and shakes his head. “Required a far steadier hand than mine.”

She goes still. The light winks off. When he turns his head to look at her, he instead finds her turned away and looking at Cee. “You did this? In the field?”

He doesn’t need to see the young girl’s face to hear the trepidation, the anxiety in her voice, as she answers, “Y-yeah.”

Stone looks back at the arm, then up to meet Ezra’s eye, then turns back to Cee. “This is _great work_ ,” she says, enunciating carefully. “I’ve seen seasoned vets make sloppier strokes. Can tell there was some necrosis creeping up, but there’s not a speck of black in here.”

She shakes her head, and lets out a little huff of a laugh, and it’s the most emotion he’s seen break through her solid veneer of professionalism and focus. “I dunno what the fuck happened to you two down there, but I’d say you saved his life. You ever thought of going into medicine?”

“I... Uh, n-no.”

“Yeah, well... Your name’s Cee? Well, keep in touch, Cee. You ever change your mind about that, I’ll be glad to give you a reference.”

It’s not until then, when he catches sight of the smile she turns on Cee, that Ezra realizes he’s in trouble.

In his defense, it's certainly been some time since he's seen a woman—an adult, _alive_ , honest-to-Kevva woman who _isn't_ trying to bayonet him to death—and by this point there probably shouldn't even be enough blood left inside him to be able to get a hard on, but so Ezra finds himself.

If she notices, she gives no sign. He doesn't know how she _could_ not notice, crouched as she is between his weak knees. His time stranded in the Green has stripped him of a bit of substance, so his pants hang looser on his frame than they once did, but not so loose as to hide all that. He doesn’t think Cee can see from where she’s sitting, thank all the stars and any gods above them, but he doesn’t even have the damned arm to casually drape into his lap and he needs the other to continue holding himself mostly upright. But he imagines this isn't the first time a patient of hers has popped one while she stitches 'em up. He hopes she doesn't take it personal.

Or, hell, maybe he hopes she _does_. He thinks—and, sure, it might just be that she's _clean_ , with rich, golden-brown skin that's surely seen a shower sometime in the past few cycles—and it might just be, again, that she isn't trying to kill him and he hasn't seen a woman alive and adult and not covered in a film of sweat and sludge and grime in longer than he'd care to mention—but he _thinks_ she's pretty.

Anyhow, he at least knows he'd rather look at her face than at whatever it is her hands are doing to his arm. There are shadows under her eyes and a firm set to her jaw that speak of long, difficult cycles patching up the dregs and strays that find themselves on a slingback to the furthest fringes; but her smile is like starlight refracted through the purest gem. Her lips look full and soft, her cheeks round and almost rosy in her pleasure. He thinks she’s younger than him, likely not by much, though beyond a small crease of worry between her brows that seems to have found some permanence there, there’s little evidence of age on her otherwise smooth and sparsely-freckled skin—except, that is, for the small crinkles that deepen at the corners of her eyes with that smile.

She’s saying something, joking with Cee or maybe giving him instructions on how to care for his weary and wounded body, but he doesn’t hear a word of it, too busy trying to will himself to turn away from her radiance in hopes that the pressure in his groin will ease. When she finally rubs his shoulder soothingly and pulls back with a sigh, he’s _sure_ she glances at his lap and her cheeks flush a little darker before her eyes snap up to meet his. “Alright, then. You’re all set.”

“I am?” He blinks and turns, surprised to find that his exposed flesh has been treated, cleaned and gelled and wrapped up snug, all while he’d been distracted.

“ _Told_ you he wasn’t listening,” Cee groans, and he glances over to find her watching him with a knowing look. _Fuck_.

“To be fair, I did drug him to the gills,” Stone says, being remarkably charitable about it, he thinks. He straightens up, pulls his left arm into his lap, still worried about Cee’s line of sight, and tries to focus on the MedTech’s words as she rises to her feet. “Try to keep that clean and dry. I’ll be stopping by for periodic wellness checks, so we can change your dressings when they need changing. I’ll bring some more scrubbers, too; seems like you’ll need ‘em. You heard of the Sanctuaries?”

Ezra blinks, surprised by the sudden change of subject. “What, the retirement homes?”

“The _prospectors’ clinics_ ,” she corrects, annoyance dripping from her words. She reaches into a pocket of her scrubs, pulls out a small, laminated green card and holds it out to him—then seems to think better of it, and hands it to Cee, instead. “Actually, you’re the sober one, why don’t you hang onto this? You, Mr. Hayes, were wounded on Bakhroma Green; that entitles you to care at any Sanctuary, free of charge, and I highly recommend you take advantage of it. I can keep you from getting infected, but I have neither the facilities nor the experience to properly close that amputation out here. You’ll want a second stage as soon as possible, and they can fit you with a prosthetic if you decide you want one. I think you’d be a good match for it, but that decision is entirely your own. Clear?”

“I... Yes. That’s...clear,” he manages; for all the words he has stored up in his head, this is the best he can do for her right now.

“Great,” she says, tossing a few items into a case and snapping it closed. She seems to think better of this, too, opening it back up and grabbing out a small, round, metal disc that she hands to Cee as well. Her voice is lower, heavier, seeming mostly for the girl’s ears though he’s allowed to hear it, too. “This will ping me directly. If you folks run into trouble, or...anything I asked you about, you let me know. Clear?”

“Clear,” Cee says, her expression grave, and he can’t help but wonder what she’d asked about, what he’s missed.

“Great.” MT Stone glances around, pats her pockets, nods firmly. “You folks try not to hurt yourselves any further, okay? This line’s closing, so we’re running a little short on MTs right now, and I can only be in so many places at once. Take care of yourselves, get some rest. I’ll see you when I see you.”

And, just like that, she turns and crosses the pod, ducks through the hatch, and is gone.

Ezra turns his head, catches Cee’s eye, and says, most eloquently, “... _Huh._ ”

“ _Yeah,_ ” she agrees, nodding her head. They’re both quiet for a moment, the space silent except for the whirr and click of the drop pod’s systems, the occasional creak and thunk as it continues settling into its dock. Cee blows out a slow breath, running her fingers along the edges of the green clinic pass the MT gave her; then, finally—and all too soon—she asks the question he hasn’t realized he’s been dreading.

“So...what now?”


	2. Pod 2742

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, I got a little carried away with this one. In my defense, [Ridingbycandlelight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ridingbycandlelight/pseuds/Ridingbycandlelight) left a very kind comment that I definitely only reread a totally normal, not at all embarrassing number of times. I'm honestly a bit astounded that anyone's reading this fic, but I am deeply grateful for all of you <3
> 
> Here we get a better look at Tess Stone, our intrepid MedTech! I got a little overzealous with the backstory, all of which is most definitely noncanonical (though if Zeek Earl and Chris Caldwell would just go ahead and release the wikipedia they apparently made for this movie, I'd be delighted to adjust-- ~~Mr. Earl, if you're reading this, hit me up, man. I have _ideas_~~ ). Also, damn guys, writing Ezra's dialogue is _hard_ , so please go easy on me. I am but a simple fic peddler, peddling my wares.
> 
> I think that's all I have to say for now, and my brain's pretty much mush after editing this beast of a chapter, so I'll shut up soon. Hopefully the next chapter will be a bit shorter, to give myself a break, but every time I say something like that it ends up not being remotely true, so we'll see. Anyway, as always, any and all feedback is deeply appreciated, and I hope you're all staying safe out there. Enjoy!

Honestly, everything about this seems like a bad idea. And, yeah, Tess has made plenty of those in her time. Kevva knows there are nights, alone in her cramped bunk in the Medbay, with nothing but her thoughts and the sight of countless stars lost in the endless expanse of space seen through her narrow stretch of viewport, when it seems like her whole life has been nothing but a steady stream of bad ideas.

But here, staring down the corridor to 2742, eyeing the stripped-down rock jumper docked at the end, this one feels especially foolish.

The man inside that pod is dangerous, this she knows for certain. If not for whatever means and motives have driven him here, then for whatever it was she’d seen in his deep, dark eyes. Even glazed over with pain and sedative in equal measure, there’d been a shrewdness in those eyes, a cunning she doesn’t think she particularly wants to cross.

But there’d been the girl, too. And there’d been his genuine horror, when he’d thought something might’ve happened to her.

If not for that... Well, she would’ve saved his life all the same, but she might not have let her curiosity get the better of her good sense, might have just followed protocol and kept her nose right the hell out of whatever kind of mess this is going to prove to be.

But he’d cared about the girl and what happened to her, and that has got to count for something, even out here. There are plenty of other dangerous men on this ship, and Tess has crossed quite a few of them, too.

Still, she isn’t stupid. Her shift may be over—though even that’s debatable; her role as Chief MT means, among other things, that she’s perpetually on call until they finally hit port and she's relieved of her post—but her implant is permanent, and her connection to the _Pivot’s_ systems is always live. Sighing, she shifts the strap of the pack across her chest and makes her way down to the pod, the icon to page Kaslo’s Chief Security Technician hovering right on the edge of her field of vision. One purposeful glance its way will bring the full might and fury of SecTech down upon this dock in about three ticks—and she isn’t a praying gal, not anymore, not after everything, but she _hopes_ she doesn’t have to use it.

She reaches the pod’s hatch and doesn’t let herself hesitate, just presses her fingers to the external comm for a quick beat, just to let them know someone’s here.

It takes longer than she thinks it should to get a response, but then Cee’s voice—confused and maybe a little drowsy—says through the static, “Who is it?”

She swallows the pang of guilt for having woken her, and touches the pad again. “Hey, Cee. It’s MT Stone. Just finished my rotation, so I thought I’d drop in on you two, see if you might be interested in dinner." There’s a question in her inflection, a testing of waters, that goes unanswered for long enough to feel uncomfortable. She leans into the pad again, sweetening the pot, “I have noodles and tea. Not the finest you’ve ever had, but they’re a sight better than slurry, I can promise you that.”

There’s a pop of static, and then a lower, smoother voice comes lilting out of the speaker. “Yours is a deeply generous offer, MT,” the man says, his uncommon accent turning the words into a kind of purr, even through the machinery’s distortion. “But I fear you’ve come all this way for naught, as we have already dined upon our own, admittedly more meager, portions.”

Outright dismissal had been her expectation, after all, but at least he’s being polite about it; that seems promising. She lets a little bite slip into her tone, lays her hand against the pad again, leaning into it so they can’t interrupt her comm until she’s said her piece. “Right, well, here’s the thing. The drop pod registered to dock 2742—which this definitely isn't—is on loan to a Damon Hayes—who _you_ most certainly are not. So I’m going to politely suggest you let me in anyway. And when you do, you’re gonna be deeply grateful that I’ve deigned to share the best meal you're likely to see for the next hundred cycles. So grateful, in fact, that you’re going to tell me _exactly_ what happened to your arm and why you’re impersonating a young woman’s father. In return, I will _consider_ ,” she lets the word and all its weight hang for a moment, _“_ not turning you over to Ship Authority for a stowaway. How does that sound?”

The silence lingers. Maybe she’s overplayed her hand. But it’s been a long few cycles, and she isn't in much mood for games. Her gaze is focused on the comm, so the SecTech icon starts to spin, making sure her brain reads it as fresh input and doesn’t just fade it away, making sure she _knows_ it’s there. She does know. She hopes like hell she isn’t about to need it.

She could always force the door. While it’s docked, even though it isn’t registered, the rock jumper is legal property of Kaslo Freighting, and she’s Chief MT—no doors stay locked for her, not in an emergency. But an emergency alert is exactly what she’s trying to avoid, here.

Kevva willing, they won’t try anything stupid, but they sure are taking their time.

She glances over to her left, drawing the icon closer to the center of her vision—not selecting it, not just yet, but ready just in case.

And then she hears the telltale hiss of the pod hatch opening.

Through another crackle of static, the man who isn't who he’s supposed to be drawls, “You make a convincing argument, MT. I, for one, have never met a noodle I didn’t like.”

She releases her held breath, and blinks the icon away. Ducking her head, she moves through the hatch once again.

The interiors of these things always make her chest feel tight. Even after all these years of living as a floater, the claustrophobia of ship life still finds a way to dig its claws in her. At least, she tells herself it’s just the close quarters, and not the fear of what she’ll encounter inside.

The man is leaning against the far wall, but up on his feet. Professionally, she's glad to see it. Personally, she's far more glad to see there isn't a weapon in his hand. She’d loaded him up with enough scrubbers that, in his state, her activating the stun-shock of all those nanobots would likely do some serious damage; she doesn’t want to have to patch him up all over again if she can help it, but if he tries anything, she will not hesitate.

The teenager, Cee, is sitting to his left, a threadbare shock blanket pulled around her shoulders. They’re both watching her closely, carefully still and silent, and it’s honestly difficult to read either of their expressions, neither one giving anything at all away.

Tess sighs, sets her pack down on the elevated hab, and unzips it. “Whose pod is this?” she asks absently, neither expecting an answer nor receiving one. That’s fine; she’s more than used to talking about nothing to fill an uncomfortable space, doesn’t think anything of slipping into Med-tongue, as Kyung-Soon calls it. “Looks pretty bare bones; I should be able to get you some real blankets, maybe a few more essentials if you need them. How’s your food supply looking?”

There’s no answer to this, either, but she wasn’t really asking. There’s a half-eaten Bits Bar on the center console, and while they’re not too bad so long as they’re still crunchy, no one would eat those if they had anything better. She extracts the shirt from her pack and steps up, crossing the habitat platform over to the prospector. It’s just standard-issue patient garb, nothing special, but it’s thick and comfortable and doesn’t have a large, uneven hole cut out of the center of its chest. She shakes it out and holds it up in front of him, half to eye it up against him to make sure it’ll fit, half to let him see she hasn’t hidden anything dangerous inside. “Here. Since I ruined yours. Might be a little big, but it’s the best I could do on short notice.”

For a moment he doesn’t move, brow creasing with apprehension, maybe a touch of confusion. “Why are you...helping me?”

“I’m an MT, and you’re on my ship,” Tess answers simply, then quirks a brow. “Why are you on my ship?”

There’s a flash of something in his eyes that she thinks and hopes might be amusement, and then he reaches out slowly and tugs the shirt from her hands without answering.

She turns her back on him, which is probably, again, a terrible idea. But although he’s upright, she imagines he isn’t moving very fast just yet. If anything, the painkiller’s just starting to lose its grip about now, so his head might be clearer but the trauma his body’s been through will be taking its toll. At any rate, he doesn’t make any sort of move for her as she kneels down beside her pack and starts pulling containers of tea and broth and noodles out of it. “I hope you folks are hungry. I know you said you’ve eaten, but I was supposed to take my dinner break about the time we got your pickup notice, so I’m—”

“How did you know?” Cee’s voice is soft, but clear in its insistence; her gaze, when Tess turns to look, is steady. “How did you know he isn’t my dad?”

Tess sits back on her heels to give the girl her full attention, but can’t quite keep the amusement out of her voice as she points a thumb back at the man and asks, “ _Him?_ You serious?” She shakes her head, and reaches up to tap a finger twice against her cheekbone, just below her left eye socket. “This thing ain’t just for show. Lets me check your vitals, sure, and gives me control over any nanobots you might have floating around in there—speaking of which, don’t let me forget, I have those extra scrubbers I mentioned—but it also gives me access to whatever medical history you have on file with the corp. I came within ten spans of your pod and got hit with a slew of flags about your dad’s bad sleep/stim habit, how I should be careful with dosage to compensate for his tolerance level but also restrict his access to more drugs. But your friend, here, had almost nothing in his system and no signs of withdrawal whatsoever.”

She shakes her head again, grabbing the extra bowls and cups she’s glad she thought to bring, and starts pouring the tea. “Somebody else might not’ve caught it, but unfortunately you kids got me. Though, someone else might also have obeyed the flag and OD’d you, so, y’know, you’re welcome for that. Anyway, it got my attention and I pulled _Damon Hayes’s_ file and, well... Let’s just say there were discrepancies. You’re a couple inches too tall, for one, and there’s that poliosis you’ve got goin’ on there, totally different heart rates, even given the injury—the fact that you’ve got about three weeks of dust in your lungs, though supposedly you were only down for three _cycles_... Do I need to go on?”

“I think we get the picture,” he drawls.

She smirks—then starts cracking open the food containers, and it spreads into a real smile when she hears the way their stomachs growl. It’s nothing spectacular, just the prepackaged dehydrated stuff you can get cheap at any port; but it’s steaming and fragrant, and even mediocre phở is good for the soul. There’d been a haunted, hunted look to the both of them when she’d been here last. If there’s any hope of getting whatever this is resolved peaceably, she figured a good meal was her best bet.

“ _Anyway_ ,” she continues, grabbing a pair of chopsticks so she can scoop noodles into bowls, “I say all this to let you know that, _unfortunately_ , there seems to have been a technical error with Mr. Hayes’s file. Whole thing got wiped, a damn shame. Had to write you up a fresh one. It’s just a temp; won’t hold up to a true search or a dock inspection, but at least you probably won’t die if something happens and one of the other Techs has to treat you while you’re still aboard. I’d hate for all my hard work to go to waste.”

“I will endeavor to keep this weary vessel shipshape,” he says, cocking his head to the side. “For your sake.”

“I would appreciate it.”

She passes the bowls of broth and cups of tea around, sets the packets of freeze-dried culantro and bean sprouts and lime juice in the center of the hab, more or less within everyone’s reach, along with the open containers in case anyone wants seconds. It’s not a bad spread, for a floater meal, and at least it smells like the real thing. She takes a set of chopsticks and the spare elastic from around her wrist, twists them together in the way her brother used to do for her when she was little, and holds it out to the prospector.

“Here,” she says, careful to keep her tone kind but free of any pity. That isn’t what she feels toward him, but she knows prospectors, knows better than to let him get even a hint that she might think less of him for what he’s lost. “Even if you decide to use a prosthetic someday, it won’t hurt anything to practice as much as possible. And it will take practice, and effort, and time. But I promise, there’s no rule that says you can’t take shortcuts.”

He lowers himself (only a little unsteadily) to sit, keeping his eyes on her. But she doesn’t budge, doesn’t flinch back from the careful scrutiny of his dark gaze, and after another moment’s hesitation, he takes the chopsticks. He gives them a squeeze, dips his head, and murmurs a soft, “Thank you.”

She nods and settles back, turning herself halfway toward them so she can dangle one foot off the edge of the hab, and grabs up her own set of chopsticks. They saw her dole everything out, saw that it all had come from the same containers, so she hurries to shove a tangle of noodles into her mouth and chew and swallow. Definitely not poisoned. If she wanted them dead they would be by now, but she doesn’t begrudge them for the caution, and mostly just feels relieved that Cee waits to see her do it before grabbing up her bowl and starting to gulp it down. The texture isn’t ideal and the flavor is both too salty and a little bland, but the teenager hardly seems to mind and Tess imagines she could use all the calories and nutrients she can get.

She herself scoops another bite, washes it down with the tea that’s actually pretty good, then takes a moment to just relish in the feeling of warm food in her belly at the end of a long-ass cycle. A deep breath in, easily and slowly released, and then she’s ready to ask, “So, who wants to tell me what the fuck is going on here?”

To her surprise, it’s Cee who pipes up. The girl talks between (and sometimes through) bites of food and swallows of broth, weaving together a tale of devastation and triumph, of fear and fortune, of survival in the most desolate wilderness. It’s as though everything that’s happened has been building up inside of her, as though she’s been desperate for someone to ask, as though what she needed more than food was the chance to tell this story. And she is a natural-born storyteller, that’s for sure; Tess listens, intrigued at first, and then rapt as she describes what her dad was like and the ill-advised and highly dangerous job he’d dragged her along for.

She is candid and honest as she speaks about her current companion, the prospector whose name turns out to be Ezra, who stole from and then had some hand in killing her father. She shows a little pride (or certainly no shame) in describing how she’d returned to their drop pod and tried to get it going, came up with a plan and a route all on her own, and then defended herself and shot Ezra in the arm when he’d come after her. She goes cagey when she gets to their run-in with the Sater, giving only a broad sketch of events that Tess is more than capable of fleshing out on her own. But then she doesn’t show the slightest qualm in talking about Ezra’s amputation, though—while he doesn’t say anything to stop her—she skirts around some of the gorier details. They are eating, after all.

There are definitely things she leaves out when she relates their encounter with the mercs and eventual theft of their pod and return to the _Pivot_ , though this hardly seems to matter for a couple of reasons. First, because whether these two refugees killed them directly or not, without another slingback those mercs are as good as dead down there. And second, because there’s only one main detail Tess’s brain can seem to focus on, turning it over and over in her head as the teenager concludes her tale.

The tea in her cup has gone cold, but Tess Stone drinks it down anyway, wishing she had something stronger to spike it with. Then she leans forward, and asks, to be sure, “So you... _exploded_ the _Queen’s Lair?_ ”

The girl glances at her companion, and nods her head slowly, solemnly. “We didn’t have a _choice_.”

A giggle escapes Tess’s lips.

They both turn to look at her like she’s grown a second head—even Ezra, who has, until now, been keeping his eyes mostly on his bowl and his attention focused on the careful maneuvering of noodles to mouth left-handed.

She tries to cover her lips, but can’t quite hold back another laugh in time. “Sorry, I just... Gods... It’s _dead?_ ”

This is a strong contender for the funniest thing that’s ever happened to her, and try as she might, the giggles won’t stop, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. She lifts her gaze to the rock jumper’s only vertical viewport, gratified that they’re far enough out and angled in such a way that she can see neither Bakhroma nor any of its damnable moons, just blackness and the light of distant stars. What are the _chances..?_ She isn't a praying gal, and never thought the idea of fate held much sway, but the fact that _she,_ of all people, would be the one to find these two and hear their story and learn about the _Lair_ firsthand... She wishes Beau could’ve been here for this. He wouldn’t have understood her delight, but at least he would’ve liked to share it with her. She thinks he would've appreciated the irony, if nothing else. “ _Fucking gods_ ,” she sighs, “that’s _wonderful_.”

“How do you figure?” The prospector’s voice is low and guarded, his question curious but also loaded with a hint of threat. But, gods, she’s not afraid of him, not afraid of _anything_ just now.

Still, Tess blinks and returns her gaze to the people around her, carefully wiping at her left eye with her sleeve—joyful or otherwise, the salt in her tears isn’t great for the implant. “You know the line’s closing, yeah? The corps are pulling out of Bakhroma. They say the Moon's picked over by now, and besides, it's dangerous as _fuck_. Not enough return on investment since the rush, especially with all this legislation that's passed; the line has to absorb the bill for medical care now, and the corps are helping fund the Sanctuaries. If the draw of the _Lair_ is gone, too, this could be the end of aurelac mining, for _good_.”

“And you think that’s _wonderful?_ ” the man says, all hinting gone, now an open threat.

She isn’t afraid of him, and it isn’t his fault that he doesn’t understand her position, but she _has_ implied a weighty slight against his profession, his livelihood, and she should try to explain. It doesn’t quite douse her joy, but it does sober her, for a time. She heaves a sigh, and asks him, tiredly, "You ever been to Central, Ezra?"

He’s eyeing her suspiciously. "Do I look like someone who has?"

"No, and all the better for it. You know what they do with this shit out there? Are they...curing cancer, solving poverty, helping _anyone_ — _anywhere?_ No, they're making _bijoux_. _Jewelry_. Fucking _trinkets_ ," she spits the words from her mouth, getting them out as fast as possible so they don't have time to sully her tongue. "There's a politician I knew, he's got a rock the size of my fist and a story of how it cost two dozen lives to get outta the Moon and into his possession, and you know what he uses it for? A fucking _paperweight_. Decoration for his desk. Keeps it where everyone can see and reminds anyone who so much as looks at it how much blood it cost and says it's 'so we all stay mindful of the price of our pleasures'. Bull _shit_ , I say. I say leave it in the ground and think of those lives _before they're lost_."

She should calm down. They’re a captive audience, and yeah, there were about a hundred policy violations in Cee’s story that she could have them tossed in the brig over, but that’s no reason to force them to endure one of her anti-aurelac sermons. She grabs the carafe of tea and pours herself another cup and says, “Sorry. It’s been a long sling.”

Ezra’s voice isn’t quite gentle, but it’s not so cold as before when he asks, “Who did you lose?”

She freezes, cup raised halfway to her mouth. It takes her a moment to gather herself, to remember to breathe, to reassure herself that the walls of the pod aren’t moving to press down on her and crush her like the insignificant little blip in the expanding universe that she is. She manages a sip of tea to clear her tightened throat, and answers shortly, “My brother.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, and she tilts her head and looks across at him. He has kind eyes, this Ezra. She hadn’t noticed it before, or perhaps he just hadn’t given her a reason to yet. “You lose him in the rush?”

She gives a bare fraction of a nod of her head. “Early days. End of the second wave, maybe start of the third. No slingbacks, no MedTechs, just a crew and an orbiter and a...need to prove himself. Just had a suit snag—nothing major, an easy patch once they caught it. Didn’t even notice that his skin had been cut, too, until they were on the lift up to the ship. His left arm. Spores had gotten in, worked their way up and into his heart. By the time they noticed... They didn’t have a sealed crematory on board. Crew stuffed his body back in his suit and dropped him down to the Green. The only thing they could send home to my parents was a map of where they think he fell.”

“That’s _awful_ ,” Cee breathes, and Tess is reminded, suddenly and sharply, that she is very young and likely very traumatized and this was a very bad story to share with her right now.

She turns to the girl, and gives her the best smile she can muster. “It was a long time ago. I know what you went through wasn’t anything easy, but things are much safer than they were back then. Now, you get folks like me out here, trying our damnedest to keep anything like that from happening.”

“Is that why you do this?”

“Among other reasons,” she agrees, giving a noncommittal wave of her hand. “But he was a deciding factor, sure.”

“...I know that story.” The prospector’s voice is slow and soft, thoughtful, almost hesitant. But when Tess turns to look, there’s a light in his eyes, a certainty, an awareness sharp enough to slice right through her.

She shrugs her shoulders like it’s nothing, but wraps both hands around her cup of tea to hide their slight tremor. “It’s a common enough one, from the rush. How long you been prospecting?”

He shakes his head, rejecting the bait, refusing to let her divert the conversation. He sits up a little straighter, a fascinated sort of amusement tugging at the corners of his lips. “Common enough in the broad strokes, I’ll grant you, but _that_ story... You _are_ her, aren’t you?”

She allows herself a sip of tea, keeping her eyes steadily on his over the rim of her cup. She shouldn’t have been so careless, so _stupid_ ; even coasting off the drugs she’d dosed him with and the trauma both physical and psychological, this Ezra is a sharp one. She’d imagined he might put the pieces together someday, but figured by then she’d surely be long gone and all he’d have left was a tale of the time he’d been patched and fed by...whatever it is that she’s become, now.

“She’s _who?_ ” Cee asks, looking between them, obviously lost. She’s so young, it’s so obvious in her voice now, even to have gone through all she’s seen...

He hums, low in his throat. “Would you believe, little bird, that we have the honor of sharing a table—or a floor, as the case may be—with a ghost? A figment of some lonely old prospector’s dream? A prodigal daughter, lost to the wilderness?”

She gestures to the remnants of their meal, nearly-empty containers and torn packets scattered about the hab. “Does that make you the pigs I beg for scraps? I didn’t think the noodles were _that_ bad.”

Ezra, for the first time since she's met him, smiles.

 _That,_ she thinks, _is dangerous_. He’s all dimples and eye crinkles, and the expression is so blindingly warm and delighted and inviting it takes her wholly by surprise, coming from a man so guarded and measured. It shouldn’t fit, but it’s as if his face was constructed specifically to frame this smile, as if it’s everything else—the frowning, the caution, the creased brow and hard gaze—that’s out of place. He could weaponize that smile, if he wanted to. Could do some damage with it.

"I should've recognized you from the first," he says, smug as anything, and she wishes it wasn't such a good look on him. "I spent half a stand in the Green with a core world kip that kept your poster above his bunk. Prayed before it every night, he did, thankin' you for our harvest—well, it was _mostly_ prayer, but he did try to be respectful about the rest. Six months watched over by the Patron Saint of Prospectors, and I didn't even know it was you."

"The eye helps," she admits, impressed by how flippant she sounds while mentally cursing herself to Kevva and back. "That and the passage of almost two decades, if it's the poster I'm thinking of."

"Well, I must say, the years look exceptional on you."

She snorts into her tea.

“ _What are you talking about?_ ” Cee demands, and Ezra turns to her, looking for all the worlds like he’s nothing short of delighted to be sharing this with her.

“Our guest, darling Cee,” he announces, indulgently, gesturing with a flourish of the chopsticks still held in his hand, “is Precious Aurel, with whom our finest gems share a name.”

“Not anymore,” she tells him firmly. "My name is Tess, now."

His smile is slow and warm and sweet as honey, and she should be angry—should be _furious_ , should be storming down to Sec right now to turn his ass over to the Chief herself—but she can’t quite shake the hold that smile has on her. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Tess.”

“ _What_ ,” Cee gasps, breaking out of her stunned silence, “you mean the _princess?_ ”

“ _Heiress_ ,” Tess corrects, her tone a little sharper than the girl deserves, but the topic always makes her prickly. “The people who gave birth to me are nothing royal. Not yet.”

“No, but they do have more wealth than some governments,” Ezra points out.

She sighs, waves a hand in vague agreement. “More than some _gods_ , most likely.”

He huffs a laugh, dips his head in agreement. Cee is shaking her head, looking bewildered. “But... What are you doing out _here?_ "

"Trying to make something good of myself," Tess answers with a shrug. "That's all anyone's really looking for, isn't it?"

"I would argue that some of us would be perfectly content with inheriting a vast and immeasurable fortune," Ezra points out.

"I'm sure some would," she concedes. “If you ask me, they’re welcome to it. But it’s not mine anymore, so I’ve got little sway to redistribute.”

“But _why?_ ” Cee asks, her brow creased with confusion. “Why give that up? Why run?”

She’s certain they’ve heard the stories, the _theories_ —the spoiled, rebellious heiress, devastated by the loss of her only sibling, abandoning the trappings of the core worlds to go off and make a way for herself in the frontier; or the little girl, half-mad with grief, scooped up by radicals and brainwashed into spouting off the anarchic rhetoric ascribed to her in the Stream; or the sacred icon, inspired by the gods, a modern-day Joan d’Arc fleeing a life of corruption to advocate for the weary and downtrodden, the prospector and fringeling alike. There’s about as much truth to any of them as another, which is to say, not much. But anything she might tell them now will just spoil the fantasy, will seem unbelievable in comparison by its sheer mundanity, so she just shakes her head.

“I had my reasons,” she answers simply. She lifts up her bowl of broth and swallows down the last dregs, then sets it back inside her pack. She’ll leave the other sets behind, as she can always get more and it seems like they could use ‘em; the leftovers, too. She tops off her tea one last time, and gestures between the two of them with her full, though lukewarm, cup. “So, tell me; what are you folks planning to do from here?”

They turn to look at each other, sharing some silent communication while she just drinks her tea and awaits their answer, more than a little curious to hear it.

“Does this mean you’ve decided not to...turn me over?” Ezra asks, his tone cautious.

She smirks, lifts her head and gazes up at the viewport for a moment. “Hmm, I suppose I have.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” he says, “as I am mighty glad to hear such a verdict. But might I inquire as to why not?”

“ _Hmm_...” Tess sets her cup down, swings her leg up, shifts to face them both head-on with her hands on her knees. She leans forward just slightly, and turns to Cee. “You ever had to deal with SecTech?”

A pained expression flashes across her face, but only for an instant. She nods slowly.

“Not a pleasant bunch, are they? Not on a good day. Definitely not to a girl alone, without a guardian to watch out for her. And this is _not_ a good day; the line is closing, which means a slew of Techs are gonna be out of a job soon, and they’re all itching for the chance to prove their capacity for loyalty—and _cruelty_ —to Kaslo.” She turns to meet Ezra’s eye, and tells him honestly, “I don’t like violence on my ship. My authority only extends so far, but I have no intention of offering the two of you up like sacrifices to such a beast.”

He cocks his head to the side, eyeing her with something she can’t quite place. He takes a deep breath, and tells her, speaking slowly, "You are not at all what I expected, MT Stone."

"You know,” she says, clicking her tongue, “I get that a lot."

He smiles again, slow and easy. "I'll bet you do, at that."

"My dad had our pod on loan," Cee cuts in with a quick, furtive glance toward her companion. "We...hadn't paid it yet."

Tess nods her head, glancing around the rock jumper and its storage containers. “I thought it might be something like that. Have you done an inventory check? We've got a ways to go before we hit port; plenty of other passengers will be looking to trade, if it turns out you have things you can spare. The place looks a bit stripped, but you never know."

“But the corp...” the girls says, shaking her head. “They’ll want us to settle up. I bet we could sell the whole thing for scrap and not make up the difference.”

"They’re gonna want to settle with your _dad_ , who isn’t _here_ ," she reminds the girl, trying to be gentle about it, trying not to carve open whatever emotional wounds might be festering there. "No need to spoil that surprise before we're docked and you have somewhere else to go. But, so long as you keep your heads down and don't cause trouble, no one's gonna demand payment until you’ve had a chance to exchange whatever gems you might’ve dug outta that rock. And when they realize you don’t have it, well, the line's closing—Kaslo will want to tie up loose ends quick and quiet and wash their hands of BG."

“And what are _your_ plans?” Ezra inquires. “I imagine you’ll be left without a post, as well?”

She nods her head in assent. It’s not much of a secret that she means this to be her last sling, and for that matter he already knows the biggest thing about her she would’ve liked to keep hidden. She’s got no real reason to keep this from him. “I’m here until Puggart’s Bench, and then I have a tram to catch out to the Lariat System. There's a Sanctuary clinic on Aphelia that's been asking me to help out for a while now. Figure it's about time I take them up on it."

His expression turns thoughtful, brows drawing together as he considers her answer. “If I’m not mistaken, the Sanctuaries are...primarily funded by the Aurel estate.”

She rolls her eyes with a sigh, not needing the reminder. “They certainly are. But I’ve been making this route for seven years, now—six of those as Chief. Continual post, no vacations, no layovers at a rest port. I’ve got enough saved that I can do something good out there, without accepting a chit of that money, at least until I can figure something else out. And anyway, I am sick to death of ships. Lookin' forward to some solid ground beneath my feet.”

“I’d say you’ve earned it,” he tells her.

Tess shakes her head and mutters, “I doubt that,” then turns and swings her legs over the edge of the hab, uses the extra bit of space to stand and stretch her arms above her head. Her spine pops in at least three places, and damn if it doesn’t feel like Kevva. Her now-empty teacup joins the bowl in her pack, and she pokes around in there for the other thing she brought.

She has to prop a knee back up on the hab to lean over far enough and hand Ezra the bottle of scrubbers. “Take three of those a cycle, in water if you can spare any, for the next ten cycles. Try to stick to the same time. You’ll be pissing out bots for a while here, but you should get to keep both lungs, so I’d call that a fair trade.”

“I’m inclined to agree with you,” he says, holding the bottle up close to his face and squinting at the label. A bit of hyperopia, maybe. She’ll have to add that to his temporary chart.

“Is it still thirty cycles to the Pug?” Cee asks, pulling a chronometer out of the little gray bag at her side.

Tess glances up, consulting the schedule that floats into view when she does. “Twenty-nine and a half, now,” she tells her. “You two just barely made the pickup in time.”

“But we did make it,” the girl says with a shrug, twisting the dial to set her countdown.

“That you did, indeed,” Tess laughs. She doesn’t often let herself get attached to patients—doesn’t often get a chance to sit down and talk to them like this, or say much more than what they need to know to stay as alive and healthy as she can keep them. The fondness she feels for this teen is likely nothing remarkable, but still it feels a little surprising. “You still have that comm I gave you?”

She nods, pulling it out of the bag as well.

“Good. Give me a ping if you notice you’re missing any essential supplies. I don’t recommend either of you wander far from your pod, just in case. SecTech’s been doing a lot of roving lately, looking to start trouble.” She turns her attention to Ezra. “I should be back next cycle to check your dressing. If you find you have anything worth trading, let me know then, and I can ask around. We’ve got almost a full house, so I’ll be making plenty of pod calls, and people tend to offer a good deal to the person who’s stitched them up. That sound good?”

He’s eyeing her carefully, some sort of pleasure tugging at one corner of his lips, and she'd had her fingers inside his chest wound just a few short ticks ago so it should _not_ be possible for the man to be that hot, but _damn_. “Are you absolutely certain you’re not a Kyrie, Tess?”

She bites the inside of her lip, sure her cheeks are starting to flush, unsure when a man had last looked at her like that and it hadn’t felt wholly or outright unwelcome. He had, after all, continued using her name, even though he knew the one she’d once been called by. She knows that’s not a particularly high bar, but the rare few people who get the opportunity have proven far more likely to not exceed it. “I am certain,” she assures him.

“Well, far be it from me to discount the word of angel,” he says (laying it on a _bit_ thick, she thinks, but it’s hard to look into eyes like those and not find herself drawn in by their charm), “but I find myself disposed to disagree on that point.”

“ _Please_ stop,” Cee groans, rolling her eyes, and Tess laughs again, and, _stars,_ but it feels good to laugh—not because the universe is once again playing some cosmic joke on her, but because she’s simply enjoying the company she’s in. Her staff are fine people, but they’ve all been running ragged this trip, and laughter has been hard to come by. She finds herself already looking forward to her next visit.

Still, this prospector named Ezra may be hot as breakfast, but he is a man that she scarcely knows. This visit has gone far better than she’d been prepared for, but she feels more certain than ever that her original assessment of him as dangerous is correct.

She lifts the strap of her pack up over her head, and meets his eye again, her expression serious. “I’m leaving this young woman in your care,” she reminds him, “and I’ll be checking in on you both with regularity. If I find you’ve harmed her in any way, I swear it’s the last thing you’ll ever do.”

He sits up straighter, squaring his shoulders while holding her gaze, and nods his head. “I believe you.”

She nods as well, pleased by this response, glad he didn’t try to make a defense for himself or assure her he was harmless. If anything, that would’ve made her assume he did have something to hide. “Good,” she says, patting her pockets and glancing around, making sure she hasn’t left anything. She’s always awkward with this sort of thing; she never did get much practice saying goodbye. “Well, then. Thanks for the chat. You two get some rest, and I’ll see you soon.”

With that, she turns and opens the hatch, ducks her head, and steps through—but not before she hears the low, lilting voice calling after her, “We look forward to it, Tess.”

She makes her way down the corridor, to the hub, around and across to the medbay, and back to the normal little chunk of life she’s carved out for herself out here in the fringe. Her rotation is over, but there’s still a mountain of reports to submit and requests to file, consults with the other MTs, then a quick podcall to the pregnant person in 3825 before she’s really done for the cycle.

That night, exhausted and eager for sleep that seems determined not to come, alone in her bunk with nothing but her own thoughts and the countless stars out her viewport, she does her best not to let herself think of dark brown eyes that crinkle at the corners as their owner says her name.


	3. Medbay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On god I have never written anything as quick as I did this... I don't really know what happened tbh? I didn't have a word of this written down when I posted the last chapter, and wrote it start-to-finish in less than 24 hours. To be fair, it's been...a hard week, and I was in dire need of a distraction and apparently just channeled all of that energy into this. Will probably be back to edit this later, but for now I need to stop looking at it for a minute...and maybe take a nap...
> 
> In the meantime, here we go: kinda sad, kinda soft, kinda comforting. We all just need a little soft!Ezra in our lives right now, right? I know that's why _I'm_ here.
> 
> Thanks so much to all of you for reading. Try to be kind to yourselves this week, and please enjoy.

Tess pushes back from her desk with a sigh, tapping the blunt edge of her stylus against the screen. Twenty more cycles until they reach Puggart’s Bench, which means there’s only nineteen more cycles to complete these assessments; about four hundred and fifty hours with which to finish constructing the framework of her staff’s futures, on top of her regular duties. This job is not without its pressures, certainly, but this is not one she’s accustomed to, and sleep has not been coming easily lately, and her mind keeps drawing blank.

With another sigh, she clips the stylus into its slot and stands and stretches, rubs the back of her neck where the muscles are starting to cramp. She can feel the headache beginning to prickle at her temples from staring at the screen so long, trying to scrape up more synonyms for “efficient” and “compassionate”, to discover new ways to phrase “very good at their job”. Maybe Kaslo won’t even read these at all, maybe the corp is just trying to punish her for leaving by making her perform the sisyphean task of evaluating her coworkers under the false pretense that this will determine their next assignments. Or, wait, no, was that Tantalus? Who was the guy with the liver?

She shakes her head. Definitely doesn’t matter. She grabs her flask, finds herself finishing off the last of the water inside, hoping it will help stave off the coming headache a little longer. She’d rather not take any caffeine right now—she’s supposed to be asleep as it is, her shift long over, but she’s trying to push herself to stay awake a little longer in the hope that by the time she finally drags herself to her bunk she’ll just conk out. Probably not her best plan, but if it works, she’ll take it.

At least she’ll be on a planet again soon, with a genuine day/night cycle, and real gravity, and no anxiety that the life support might kick off or the engine core could implode or her viewport will crack and suck her body out into the vastness of space.

Shuddering at her own useless thoughts, she turns and ambles over to the mini commissary to refill her flask. The empty coffeemaker mocks her, and she mutters a curse under her breath and slides open the compartment beneath. It’s mostly full of the strong stuff, thanks to Arnav’s foresight at the start of this sling, when the line’s closing had just been announced; but there’s a thin layer of packets of decaf, right at the bottom, once she does a little digging.

“Gonna make some sanka,” she calls softly, turning to eye the other occupants of the Medbay office. “Anyone want some?”

Federico doesn’t move or say anything, still lying back on the cot along the far wall with his eyes closed and his hands folded over his stomach; and Kyung-Soon doesn’t look up from her book, but she lifts a finger in the air. Two cups it is, then.

Tess clicks on the water heater, and fishes out two packets. While she waits, she folds her arms and leans back against the storage cabinet and closes her eyes.

Behind her eyelid, the implant gives her a map of the ship and the locations of her crew—the three dots in Medbay, the dot of Arnav in his bunk, and the dot of Robin in pod 1187, finishing up their rounds. It’s the smallest staff she’s had on a freighter this size, but they haven’t had a single death that she believes could’ve been prevented since they left Central, which is a rare thing even with twice as many MTs, or more.

She’s gotta get those assessments finished. Even apart from Kaslo, what she writes of them now could be taken to any prospective employer for the rest of their careers. They deserve the reference of an experienced Chief MT, deserve good ones. She’s just gotta figure out the words to do that with.

She opens her eyes again, and looks over at her two present coworkers with fondness.

Somehow this is Kyung-Soon’s first posting, just out of her residency, and she’s managed to establish a thriving book trade in that short time, always carrying a couple extra novels in her kit in case the people she meets on her rounds want to join the circulation. Whatever she’s reading now has drawn her full attention, and her lips are moving, murmuring out bits of story with every breath. She doesn’t really seem able to read silently, but her gentle voice has become part of the background noise of their office, and honestly Tess has a harder time focusing when the extra layer of sound isn’t there.

Fede doesn’t seem the least bothered by it, though she can’t tell whether he’s genuinely asleep or just resting. Either way, the fact that he’s here keeping them company instead of away in his bunk is ridiculously touching. The older man’s been making this sling with her going on three years now, _assigned_ to the far-fringe circuit by the corp after a series of complaints—insubordination and an ‘acerbic attitude’, sabotaging another MT's treatment plan, a poor bedside manner with patients, and that was just the first six or so pages. But the rest of his record showed a breadth of experience that wasn’t to be ignored, even if much of it had been redacted. She’d confronted him about it right there on the dock, before he’d even taken a step onboard her ship, checking to see whether they’d have a problem. His answer, as she’d later find his answers to always be, was short and direct; “That depends on you.”

When she’d asked what the hell that was supposed to mean, he’d just stood there for a long time, peering down at her, before finally throwing her a bone. “My last Chiefs weren’t better at their jobs than I am, so I didn’t respect them.”

And that seemed...fair, if more than a little intimidating. He definitely has her beat in time on the job, and she’d spent those first few months agonizing over whether or not he thought her good enough, debating with herself every time she asked him for advice—would he appreciate her recognition of his skill, or think her inferior for not figuring it out herself? It wasn’t until the third time he’d refilled her coffee before she even noticed it was low that she realized what that meant from a man like him. He’s economical with both words and emotions, but he shows affection like a cat, and she’s grateful that he approves of Kyung-Soon enough to tolerate her reading while he naps.

They’re a great match—Kyung-Soon is open and kind and beloved by all their patients, softening up the old fringer’s hard and unflinching edges; and Fede is as willing to learn new techniques and theories from the far-more-recent grad as he is to share his vast knowledge and show her the shortcuts they don’t teach you in school. Tess hopes, wherever they’re placed after this, that they get to stick together a little longer.

She turns at the click of the coffeemaker, tears open the packets and sets them to brew, wondering if there’s a way she can word all of that in her assessments. Kaslo doesn’t care if its employees are friends or not, but she knows that all of them would be worse at their jobs without the rapport they’ve built up together, without knowing they can rely on one another. It would be a shame not to mention it, at the very least.

If she’s being perfectly honest, she wishes she could just take them all with her. But Aphelia’s clinic isn’t that large—the only reason they’re able to extend her the post is because they won’t have to pay her for it—and anyway, she knows they wouldn’t be happy there.

Kyung-Soon’s a born and bred floater, the eldest child from a group of families that make their lives aboard a small fleet of exploratory vessels. Her dad’s a xenobotanist, her mom’s a retired SecTech that signed on to help keep “this cluster of nerds”, as she apparently still calls them, alive. The baby MT readily admits she doesn’t know what to do with herself on anything bigger and more stationary than an asteroid, and even then she struggles.

And Fede is...not well suited to civilization. It’s a rare thing, indeed, when he shares anything at all about his past, though she knows at least two details that seem enough to assure her she doesn’t wanna know more: that his optical implant is of a make and model she’s never seen before or since, and that he’s had dealings with Karolclan and isn’t remotely afraid of them—if anything, she suspects _they’re_ afraid of _him_.

Robin, meanwhile, is hoping to stick closer to the core worlds, wanting the ability to spend more time with their partner and relieve the burden of such a very long-distance relationship. And Arnav grew up in the Lariat, is the reason she got this contact with the New Amphora Sanctuary in the first place, and proclaims, regularly and loudly, that he’s never going back there, “ _Not even for the worlds’ best Chief_.”

She’s been aching for this chance, so tired of constantly moving and running and fleeing her past, beyond ready to finally find a place to settle down, to plant some roots. But she’s going to miss this crew so dearly, when she does.

She fills two mugs with decaf, deposits one on Kyung-Soon’s desk, and grudgingly returns to her own. She still doesn’t know what to write, but if she can at least get some of those thoughts down on the document, she can always come back and edit it later— _hopefully_ when she’s a bit better rested.

Just turning the screen back on makes her wince, though, and she sets the mug of hot coffee down on the edge of her desk before she’s even taken her first sip, then reaches inside her drawer for her eyedrops and wipes. She’s had the implant for more than twelve years now, but the upkeep still manages to annoy her. Fede just fucking pops his out to clean it, and she’s spent three years trying to get him to stop because it grosses everybody out. She can count the number of times she’s seen him smile on her fingers, but secretly she suspects he thinks it’s funny to make them all gag.

With a huff, she leans back, twisting half-out of her chair because it’s bolted to the floor and doesn’t give her enough room, and lifts the dropper above her face—the eye isn’t _real_ , but still the impulse to blink when something comes at it is difficult to suppress, and it always takes her a few tries, and she’s got her other hand gripping the wipe and the edge of the desk to keep herself steady.

And then her comm trills and scares the _everloving fuck_ out of her.

She jumps and slips outta the chair and falls heavily on her ass, and she can only barely get out an, “ _Ow_ ,” before she’s hissing, “ _Shitshitshit_ ,” because she somehow managed to drag the mug over, too, and she’s been drenched in hot coffee.

And it isn’t even fucking _caffeinated_.

“ _Chief!_ Are you _okay?_ ”

She hauls herself up, gasping and tugging her wet, hot shirt away from her stomach with a few more curses. Kyung-Soon looks like she’s struggling between concern and laughter; Fede doesn’t say anything, but his eyes are open and he’s giving her a disdainful look because the comm is _still_ screeching. But she can only spare them a glance as she digs through her pack for the offending bit of tech, because she has a sinking feeling about what this is going to be.

The normal emergency alerts are patched through the ship’s systems, delivered straight to her implant; there are only three pods docked that have her direct comm.

Her fingers close around it and she gasps, “ _Stone_ ,” into the mic, already scooping up her quick-kit as Cee’s rushed voice comes through the speaker.

“ _Tess? It’s Ezra, he’s like—glitching out, I don’t know what’s wrong with him_.”

“I’m on my way,” she tells her, hurrying through the door and out to the hub. “Did he hurt you?”

“ _What? No, no, it’s not— He’s just—_ ”

“Is he bleeding?”

“ _I don’t...think so?_ ”

“Okay.” She takes a breath, wheels around a corner to hurry down the spoke that’ll take her to level 2. “Are you still at your pod?”

“ _He’s outside_ ,” she says, sounding a little less frantic now, speaking a little slower. “ _I’m at the hatch, he’s just, like...pacing_.”

“Okay. Keep an eye on him, and stay on the comm with me. I’m almost there.”

“ _Okay. Thank you_.”

“You’re welc—”

“ _Oh. Shit, he’s going— He’s turning right, I’m gonna follow—_ ”

Tess curses under breath and starts to jog before clicking back on. “You’re doing great, Cee. But give him space.”

“ _Okay. I... Okay_.”

“Can you see him?”

“ _Uh... Yes._ ”

“What’s he doing?”

“ _Just... He’s by the viewport, he’s just...sitting there?_ ”

She nods, then remembers the girl can’t see her, and huffs, “Keep an eye on him. Let me know if he moves.”

“ _Okay._ ”

Tess spots her as soon as she rounds the bend, leaning out of the corridor that leads to their pod, her head turned the other way. “Hey,” she calls when she gets close, and the girl whips around and trots over to meet her, shaking her head.

“We were just sleeping,” she says, her brow creased with worry and confusion. “But then he woke up and he was just—shouting. Not words, just...noise.”

Tess nods, taking a moment to catch her breath, and to send the default notification through her implant to the rest of the crew, that she’s on a call and should only be reached for emergencies. “I think I know what’s going on. He’s at this first viewport?”

“The second, behind the rack,” she says, pointing, and from her angle Tess can just make out the heel of a dingy gray sock peeking out at the base of the storage unit.

She nods and returns her attention to the girl, placing a comforting hand on her arm. “Thank you for calling me. I’m gonna take a tick and try to talk to him, okay? Wanna wait here?”

The girl gives a quick nod, chewing on her lip, and Tess takes another moment to give her arm a squeeze before making her way carefully over to the second viewport.

He’s curled in on himself, wedged into the corner between the storage rack and the hull, one leg folded beneath the other, which is bent and hugged close to his chest by his remaining arm. His back is angled toward her, his face pressed tight to the viewport; but she can see his shoulder rise and fall, can hear his ragged breaths, and she thinks he might be crying.

“Ezra?” she asks, as gently as she can manage, as soft as she can get with him still able to hear her. She hears him suck in a breath, and hold it. “Ezra, it’s Tess. If you can tell me what’s going on, maybe I can help.”

“ _Can you make it stop?_ ” he gasps, and his voice is so raw and worn that she can only hope the answer is yes, because if not she might start crying, too.

But she needs to be sure, first. “That depends,” she tells him honestly. “Which part?”

He takes a shuddering breath, and for a moment she fears he isn’t going to answer, fears she might have to call Robin off their rounds to come up here and assist even though she’s sure he wouldn’t want anyone to see him like this, sure that’s why he’d abandoned Cee like that without thinking about how doing so would scare her. But he releases the breath and takes another; and when he releases that one, the words, “ _I can still feel it_ ,” pass through his lips right along with it.

She squeezes her eyes shut, wishing it had been almost anything else, wishing her suspicions hadn’t been right. She crouches down for a moment, sets her kit down on the floor beside him. “I don’t think I can stop that,” she admits, “but I might be able to make it a little easier, if you want me to try.”

After a moment’s hesitation, he nods his head.

“Alright. I’m gonna speak to Cee real quick, first, and let her know you’re alright. Okay?”

Another nod. She puts her hands on her knees and pushes herself up, crossing back down the hall to where the teenager is watching them with concern clear on her face.

“He’s having some phantom pain,” she explains, and can see by the way her eyes widen that she knows what that is. “I’m gonna sit with him a while and try to talk him through some ways to manage it. But it’ll help me to know that you’re back safe in the pod while I’m focused on him, okay? I promise I’ll bring him back to you—or if I need to take him to Medbay, I’ll call you on the comm and you can come with us. Does that sound alright?”

The girl looks down at the comm in her hands, then back up and into Tess’s eyes. “You promise?”

This girl has lost both her parents, has been stranded and alone and discovered that she is capable of coming up with her own solutions, but may Kevva strike her down before Tess puts her in that kind of a bind again. “I promise,” she says, and digs her own comm out of her pocket. She turns the dial so it stays fixed on this frequency, without transmitting to any of the others; then she slides the talk switch up and locks it into place, and hears her own voice echoing out of the one in Cee’s hand as she says, “I’ll leave it turned on, so you can check in if you want, and hear that we’re still out here.”

“Oh,” she says softly, and then manages a smile. “Okay. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Tess says, hoping the girl can tell she means it. “Try to get some rest, if you can. We’ll be alright out here.”

Cee nods and sends another glance toward Ezra before turning and making her way to the pod. Tess waits to make sure she gets inside, then heads back to him.

“Ezra?” His breathing isn’t quite so ragged as before, but he seems to be trembling, and she isn’t sure that’s any better. She scoots her kit out of the way and sits down on the floor next to him.

She waits a moment, listening to his breathing and letting him hear hers, before she gently asks, “May I touch you?”

His body jerks, the question taking him by surprise. His head turns just a fraction toward her, enough that she can just see the streak of tears down his cheek, and grunts, “ _What?_ ”

“May I touch you?” she repeats again, keeping her tone exactly the same. “I think it’ll help, but I won’t do anything you don’t want me to. We can just talk. Or just sit, if that’s what you want. I won’t leave, though—so I guess there’s _one_ thing I’ll do regardless of whether you want it or not, sorry.”

She’s rambling a bit, but she’s not even sure he’s listening to her, so it probably doesn’t matter.

“I...” he starts, then pauses to clear his throat, shifting a little bit so he’s not quite as completely turned away from her. “If you want to touch me, Kyrie, I’ll not stop you.”

And... _well_.

Well the thing is, she _does_ want to touch him. The thing is that he’s handsome and intriguing, and he cares deeply about the teenager he’s suddenly responsible for even though he certainly never asked to be, and he’s been through something awful, and he still calls her _Kyrie_ and also calls her _Tess_ , and usually he’s smiling while he says either one.

The thing is also that he’s her patient. The thing is that, twenty cycles from now, she’ll never see him again.

So she swallows hard and doesn’t say anything about those other things, just leans forward and places her hand over his. After a moment, with a shuddering breath, he releases his grip on his knee, lets her tug his hand away and hold it between both of hers.

It is not a delicate hand, big and sort of square with thick, sturdy fingers and nails bitten short, here and there marked with faint scars and deep callouses. His skin isn’t soft, but its warmth feels nice against her always-cold fingertips. There’s a tattoo just above the webbing between his thumb and index finger and she wonders if there’s a story behind it or if he just thought it looked cool. She tries not to wonder if he has others. She runs the pads of her fingers across his knuckles and along his palm, feels the muscles flex as his fingers twitch in response. “Can you feel that?” she asks, her voice barely more than a breath.

He uncoils like a fraying rope, slowly, easing his leg down to knock against hers, turning his torso and shifting his hips until he’s only leaning against the hull instead of pressing himself into it. He doesn’t lift his face to hers—though he doesn’t need to for her to see the redness around his eyes and the lines on his cheeks and the mucus sticking in his mustache—but just stares down at his hand between hers. His lips are parted, and the bottom quivers a little before he takes a breath and says, softly, “I can feel it.”

“Good. Try to focus on this, okay?” She traces her way up along his fingers, back down to his palm, then up again, feeling him press against her as she does it. “ _This_ is real, Ezra. The other stuff, it’s just your brain trying to catch up to what’s happened to you, trying to make sense of it. Surgery might help, but it also might not. Drugs might numb it for a while, but it'll come back. My best advice, when you’re feeling something you know isn’t real, is to try to pay attention to what _is._ Give yourself a distraction.”

“ _Distraction_ ,” he echoes, the word little more than a breath.

“Mm-hm,” she agrees, cradling his hand in her left, while the fingers of her right find his pulse thrumming in his wrist, then drag up along the line of his thumb, and spread back down to skim across his palm.

He shifts again, sitting up straight enough that his shoulder brushes against hers. “Your fingers are cold,” he says, and she thinks she can feel him shiver.

“I know, I’m sorry,” she mutters. She keeps her fingernails filed short, but there’s just enough of an edge that she can flip his hand over and drag them along the back in a way she hopes is pleasant, crossing along the ridges of his veins. “My circulation isn’t great.”

He huffs, and swallows so hard she can hear it. “You smell like... _coffee_ ,” he says slowly.

She snorts a laugh, already having forgotten about that. “I spilled some on myself before I came to see you.”

He turns his head, glancing at the stain on her shirt, and breathes out through his nose in a way that could almost be a laugh. His fingers curl around her right hand, his grip strong and sure, holding her fast as he tilts his head back and lets it thump against the storage rack. He stares up at the curving hull above them, and she can see his jaw flex from grinding his teeth. “You certainly are distracting, dear Tess, but I’m not sure it’s working,” he groans out. “Can you...tell me a story?”

“A story?” she asks, wracking her brain to think of the scant few books she’s read recently, wondering what sort of thing he might like, wishing she’d made more time to take advantage of Kyung-Soon’s library. “Yeah, okay. What do you wanna hear?”

He sighs—more from exhaustion than annoyance, she thinks, and that seems to be confirmed by the beseeching tone of his weary voice when he asks, “Something...true?”

“Something _true..._ ” she echoes, her whole line of thought derailed by the request. Not necessarily in a bad way.

In twenty cycles, she’ll never see him again. The thought is more distressing than it has any right to be—especially now, after this time spent huddled up together in a little nook along an empty gangway, caressing his hand with gentle strokes of her fingertips and soft scratches of her nails—but it’s also a little bit freeing, too. He knows who she was, but she’ll never really have to reckon with what it would mean to share a piece of that past with him.

Licking her lips, she scoots a little closer to him, mindful of the active comm in her pocket and the knowledge that Cee might be listening, too; but at least that means she won’t feel as guilty about not having given the girl a real answer when she’d first asked, only to share this with him instead. “Something true,” she begins, “is that I...had been estranged from my parents about three years, when Beau died.”

His head falls forward and he turns to her, seeming to forget that he’d been crying and didn’t want her to see his face, just staring at her in surprise. “What?”

“Mm-hm,” she hums, leaning her head to rest against his shoulder, because as thrilled as she is that he’s looking at her now she’s not sure she can bear to look at _him_ and keep talking about this. She keeps running her fingers along the back of his hand, though, the movement about as soothing for her as she hopes it is for him. “Everything said I'd run away after, but I'd been gone a long time by then. They paid off any reporters that caught wind of it, and everything anyone could read claimed I’d gone off to college with their full support, under my own name but at an undisclosed and private university. The truth is, I’d been saving up currency for as long as I can remember. They didn’t give us any money, Beau and I; all our purchases had to be submitted for review through the estate managers. We’re talking, like, new clothes, books, _snacks_... Anything. Everything. So Beau and I started pawning off things we found lying around the house, or gifts we were given for birthdays and holidays from people who clearly didn’t know anything about us. Little things, at first, just for a bit of spending money. But no one ever paid attention to what we did as long as we didn’t make a scene, and it turned out I really liked the freedom of being able to fend for myself.”

He coughs something like a laugh, and asks, “What’s the worst thing you sold?”

“Oh, _pffft_...” She has to stop and actually think about that one. “There were some truly atrocious stuffed animals that no kid anywhere has _ever_ wanted to play with. Not even the 'so ugly it's cute' kind either, y'know? Just ugly. But the worst thing..? _Oh_. Oh, there was this fucking chandelier in my room, just gaudy as hell, and it was _huge_. Had to’ve been a yard in diameter, the thing was practically bigger than I was. Took forever to get it out of the ceiling, but then I walked right off with it, had a driver take me to a jeweler who broke off all the crystals and melted down the gold and handed me a fat stack of bills in return. I was...thirteen, maybe? Stuck a paper lantern that I made at school in its place, and no one ever even mentioned it.”

He _actually_ laughs at that, she can feel his shoulder shaking from it, feels the sound of it surrounding them and filling the little space they’re tucked into, and she thinks this might actually be working. His grip on her hand doesn’t feel so desperate anymore, though he doesn’t release her. That’s okay, she’s in no hurry to go.

“So you saved all this money for, what? Just for school?” he asks, and she can feel him shaking his head because now he’s resting his cheek against the top of her head. His tongue isn't quite so fluid this evening as she's grown accustomed to, but under the circumstances she's grateful to hear him say this much. “Surely they could’ve sent you anywhere you wanted to go.”

“I saved it...to have _options_ ,” she clarifies. “To get the chance to be a _person_ , not an _appendage_. I was never what they wanted me to be. _Literally_ never. They already had an heir with Beau; I was conceived to be the spare, but then I fucked that up by being a girl. But they’d already announced the pregnancy to the media and felt they had to go through with it, and apparently I was even bad at being a _fetus_ , so then Lady Aurel couldn’t have any more kids after me. The new plan became to marry me off to some family with enough power and prestige to make them look even better, and I grew up knowing that that was the best and only life they would ever possibly allow me.”

“So you decided differently.”

She smiles. “I did. I sold off stupid shit and I saved everything I could, and when I turned seventeen I packed it all away and fled the manor during my own party because I knew no one would be paying attention to me; caught a cab down to the courthouse to change my name and file for emancipation. I shaved my head in the courthouse bathroom and changed into clothes I bought from a lady who worked in the kitchens, and by that time no one had seen me without makeup in like five years, so I just had to wash my face and suddenly...I was invisible. Caught a shuttle off-world, made my way to New Zambezi, where I’d already submitted my transcripts under my new name and been accepted. I was a few days late for the start of term, but when I offered to pay for my first year in cash, they didn’t seem all that upset about it. By the time the investigators caught up with me, all the paperwork had been processed and filed, and everything I’d done was technically legal. They had no choice but to call off the wedding on the sly and pretend they’d been in on it the whole time.”

"So you've always been this clever, huh?" he asks softly. Before she has a chance to come up with a response to that, he sniffs and asks, "Who was the unlucky groom?"

"Hm? _Oh_ ," she laughs, shaking her head. "I have no idea! I sorta bailed before the announcement; it was supposed to be a surprise. Would've taken the prize for worst birthday present ever, which is really saying something, lemme tell you."

"Hmm, I imagine you'd have a harder time pawning that one off."

She grins. "Hey, you never know. You can buy _anything_ on Central."

He breathes out, low and slow, and it sounds blessedly steady. His hand curls, adjusting his grip so he can rub his thumb along hers, and the gentle, innocuous movement is way more thrilling than it has any right to be. "I'm sorry, Tess."

She swallows hard. "For what?"

"Oh, for...all of it. For everything. I'm sorry your parents weren't worth my bot-filled shit," he tells her, which makes her laugh. "I'm sorry you lost your brother," he says, which makes her go still. "I'm sorry you're...having to take care of me."

She's been fending off the desire to kiss him for a few cycles now, but this is almost more than she can bear. She'll never see him again, so she decides to allow herself one tiny indulgence, lifts his hand to her mouth and presses her lips to the tattoo by his thumb, just for a second. "That last one ain't so bad," she tells him, letting their hands fall back to her lap. "There are worse things I could be doing right now."

"What, like sleeping?" he jokes, and she hopes she isn't imagining the hint of breathlessness in his voice, hopes it's because of her.

"Like laying in my bunk and not being _able_ to sleep," she corrects, and rests her cheek a little more heavily against his shoulder, lets her eyes fall closed, blinks away the overlays her implant offers up. "Though, if we stay out here much longer, you might have to drag me to a cot in a minute."

"Hmm. I imagine we could fit one in here, instead. Bring the cot to you."

"That also works."

" _Or_ ," he suggests, "You could help me back to the pod, and I can let you go sleep in your own bed."

"You sure? I can stay as long as you want."

He lifts his head, and gently pulls his hand from hers. When she straightens and opens her eyes, he's looking at her—his eyes are still a little bloodshot, but all the more brilliant for it, glittering with the reflection of the hall's running lights, bottomlessly dark and intent on her. "If you do that," he says, so soft it almost seems like he's talking to himself, "we might never get off this ship. And I know you've got things to do."

She doesn't have any idea what to say to that, any idea where to even _begin_ , so she just nods her head dumbly, feeling her cheeks flush hot.

She grabs her kit and heaves herself up, then helps him stand in the cramped space and start to make their way down the hall. His balance is maybe a little skewed but he walks just fine, surely doesn't need her help; but she certainly has no desire to stop him from slinging his arm across her shoulders, or to keep hers around his waist.

"Is she...very mad at me?" he asks, a little hesitantly. "For running off like that?"

"Who, Cee? I don't think so..." Tess shakes her head, thinks of the emotion she'd seen on the girl's face, and shakes her head again. "I think she's just worried about you."

"I didn't mean to scare her," he admits, and she nods.

"I know. I think she knows, too." She pauses to consider the thought, then adds, "Probably wouldn't be a bad idea to tell her that, though. In the morning, maybe."

"Yeah," he agrees, nodding. "Yeah, okay."

They reach the pod, and she helps him through the hatch and looks around. There are two cots set up on the hab—one empty, with one of the blankets she'd brought lying crumpled on the floor; the other occupied by Cee, fast asleep, wrapped up in her own blanket, the comm held tight in one hand.

With a smile, Tess steps up and eases it from the girl's loose grip and clicks it off, before fishing her own from her pocket. Ezra's watching her curiously as she shuts it off, too, and she pulls a face and explains in a whisper in hopes of not waking the teen. "I told her she could listen in; she seemed scared I was gonna make off with you and leave her stranded again. I'm sorry, I should've told you."

He gives her the rare soft, small smile of his that makes her feel a little dizzy, and sits down on the other cot, pulling the blanket up over his lap. "Thanks for that," he says, speaking just as quietly. "You're good with kids. Think you could give me some tips? I find myself in need of a crash course."

"I'll write you up a list," she teases, crossing to his cot and reaching out to tug his blanket up; but he sits up a bit so he can catch her hand with his and hold it tight.

" _Thank you_ , Tess," he breathes, pulling her hand to rest against his chest. "If it wasn't for you, I'd... We'd still be..."

She shakes her head firmly, tells him, "If it wasn't for me, you'd have figured out how to handle this all on your own. All I've done is offer a shortcut."

"I'd say you've offered more than that," he murmurs. "I'm grateful all the same."

She blinks, and has to ease herself down to the edge of the cot and take a deep breath. "You're welcome, Ezra. Try to get some sleep. I'll be by tomorrow to check up on you."

"I look forward to it."

She uses the hand he's still holding to help ease him down on the cot, and pulls the blanket up over his chest. For a moment, she considers laying down beside him—not even to _do_ anything, just because he looks like a good cuddler and now she knows how warm his skin is and she thinks it would be a better night's sleep than any she's seen in a very long time.

But there really isn't room for two on the cot, and she has no idea what she'd say to Cee in the morning, and the other MedTechs would, eventually, come looking for her and ask questions and, _gods_ , she'd rather die than have to admit she's got a crush on a patient to Fede's face.

She's pretty sure Ezra would let her do it, though. She's pretty sure he would want her to.

And it's _that_ thought, more than any of the others, that urges her to push herself up and away from him. Because it's one thing to nurse a little affection for a handsome patient that'll be out of her life soon enough; it's something else entirely to suspect the feeling might be mutual, and have to deal with all the trouble and possibility that implies.

"Goodnight, Ezra," she says with a nod.

He returns the nod, and tells her, "Sleep well, Kyrie."

She tries not to reach back for him, as she turns and leaves the pod—and as she makes her way to the hall, and back along the spoke, and across the hub. She sends a ping to Medbay to let them know she's back, but heads straight for her bunk instead without passing through the office, collapses into the pallet without even washing her face or changing out of her scrubs or taking down her hair. She's tired now, _finally_ , and the rest can be salvaged in the morning.

With a groan, she rolls over and pulls her own standard-issue blanket on top of her with the motion. It isn't as warm as she now knows him to be; the bed isn't as comfortable without another firm body to press into.

It will have to do.


	4. Tendei Inter-System Tram 825

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was _supposed_ to just be a quick filler chapter, I really don't know how this happened. But I'm gonna blame Ezra for this one; the man just has too much to say. I do apologize for the delay, but the good news is that I can never write a fic in chronological order to save my life, and the bulk of the next chapter is the first part of this I ever wrote. It shouldn't take too much work to update/expand it a little and polish it up, so hopefully I'll have that ready to post very soon.
> 
> As a quick note, there's a very brief mention of narcotic/drug use toward the end of this chapter. No one actually partakes in anything, but a couple of characters mention wanting to do so. I just wanted to give a heads-up, and if there's ever any content in this story that you guys think could use a warning, please let me know and I'll do my best to provide one.
> 
> Thank you all so, so much for the kudos and kind words, you're all far too good to me and I'm so glad to know people are enjoying this weird, unwieldy fic that I've grown so attached to. It really means so much to me, and makes this such a pleasure to work on, even when I'm banging my head against a brick wall of writer's block. I hope you all have a new year filled with joy and peace and love. Take care of yourselves out there, and enjoy ( ˘ ³˘)♥

For at least the millionth time since he's met her, Ezra finds himself thanking whatever power brought Cee into his life. The ten millionth, perhaps, or getting close to it.

He's had his own ship since he was just a pup, scarcely older than she is now, after a youth spent champing at the bit to get off the rock he was born on as soon and far as possible. So for all his many years of interplanetary travel, he's never had to do it like this before—never had to wait around for cycles until someone else's ship appeared to take him where he wants to go; never had to stand in lines all up and down the concourse just to board the crusted thing; never had to have his bag and person checked and rechecked by a hundred different SecTechs who all manage to exhibit the tact and demeanor of a channel rat in the throes of death.

It scarcely seems worth it at all, and he never would have made it if not for the kid, who tells him she's done this plenty of times before and he just needs to learn to keep it creamy.

Even so, despite her breadth of valuable experience, she seems surprised by these crowds, says she’s never seen so many people trying to board a tram like this, with still more being turned away at the gate for failing to book their passage beforehand. But Ezra recognizes the looks on the faces around them, if not (thank fuck) any of the faces themselves, and he’s pleased to have something _he_ can explain to _her_ in return for all the lessons she’s had to give in the days they spent sequestered together on the Bench, planning their next moves.

“Look at their eyes,” he tells her, “and the hands. Twitchy like that, like they’re used to wearing gloves and don’t know what to do without ‘em? They’re all prospectors, the lot of ‘em. We need to be careful here.”

She already knew that last part, of course; clever as anything, Cee is. But she hadn’t thought about the fact that the system on the other end of this journey is about as close to Bakhroma’s as anyone could hope to get these days, and for those folks still determined or desperate enough to take at least one more shot at catching the fade, this might be their last best chance of hiring onto a private ship that’ll take them out to the Green. Given the exchange rate they’d been offered for his own meagre harvest and the few viable supplies they’d scraped together out of the bits and scraps of the mercs’ drop pod, even Ezra can’t deny the appeal, even _now_.

But he certainly can't prospect, not in this state—perhaps never again. The sting of such a realization isn’t quite so sharp as he’d anticipated, however; he'd always known this day would come, though he never imagined it would arrive quite so soon, nor under such singular circumstances. Still, he's been subconsciously preparing for something similar for a good long time.

And anyway, he has responsibilities now, a young girl to think of, legally signed over into his care by the power of Puggart's Bench Dock Authority, witnessed by a Chief SecTech of Kaslo Freighting, at the end of a grueling offboarding interview ( _interrogation_ , more like) that lasted almost two complete cycles. They even have the honest-to-Kevva paperwork to prove it—printed on _actual paper_.

It’s remarkable, what the sudden appearance of a legal dependant into one’s life can do to a man’s priorities. Without Cee here, he’d be scanning their fellow passengers for more than just threats, scoping out those who landed closer to the determined end of the spectrum than the desperate one, ingratiating himself to any who looked like they might have more than a snowball’s chance at actually making it out to BG and back alive.

But without Cee, he wouldn’t be here in the first place. Most likely, he’d still be stranded shipless on that damned moon—searching for a way off, in theory, but mostly just anticipating his own slow death as the toxic spores made their way through his busted filter. He supposes a little time spent enduring the trials and indignities of public transit is a fair enough price to pay for having evaded such an end.

So he finds it easy enough to keep his attention focused on the task at hand, to ignore the siren song of aurelac as she tries to get her hooks in him once more; and together he and the girl make their way aboard the tram with scarcely any incident.

Ezra—with his broad body despite the loss, his hard gaze because of it, his pistol hanging off his hip though he’s still outta bolts and it’d been drained of any charge at the very first Security checkpoint—parts the crowd before them. But it is Cee who leads, as she had in the Green, keeping a tight grip on the near-useless second shoulder strap of his pack to avoid their getting separated. He is grateful for her expertise, for the trust they’re learning to place in one another, for the opportunity to not be solely and wholly responsible for himself, just this once. So he listens when she tells him, “We should head for the far end,” and he obeys when she says, “Keep going, we can always work our way to the front if she’s not back here,” and he believes her when she calls, “Oh, look, there she is,” even though he hasn’t spotted their quarry just yet. But it isn’t only his less-than-stellar eyesight at fault, he realizes, once he manages to follow Cee’s gaze to the nearly-empty compartment.

He’s never seen Chief MedTech Stone in her civvies before, and to say he doesn’t recognize her would be an understatement. To call her merely breathtaking would only be scratching the surface.

He’d known that she was attractive—or, in any case, that he was _attracted to_ her—but even after so many nights, alone in his cold cot and doing his damnedest not to think about the strange, angry, tenderhearted woman who’d healed his broken body and held his hand through his lowest point, he hadn’t pictured _this_.

It’s the first time he’s seen her hair loose, and she’s got it parted deep to one side, letting it fall just past her shoulders in a cascade of springy, soft-looking curls; he can’t imagine how she ever manages to corral all of it into the simple, practical braid she typically wears, but now he better understands the need for the headband she pairs it with. She’s swapped out the shapeless gray scrubs for a pair of deliciously form-fitting black leggings and an oversized, cream-colored cardigan, one of the sleeves riding low enough on her shoulder to reveal smooth brown skin and the black strap of whatever she’s wearing underneath. There’s no sign of the tense posture and clenched jaw he remembers from the last few times they’d seen her; rather, she looks relaxed and well-rested, as though she’d spent every minute of the layover at Puggart’s Bench catching up on all the sleep she’d missed out on aboard the _Pivot_. The expression on her face, as she ignores the boarding passengers to instead gaze out the viewport to her right, is not so much _happy_ as _serene_ , filled with a subtle glow of ease and contentment that seems utterly foreign to a man like him.

It makes him feel nervous, unsure of himself, suddenly doubtful of the plan that had seemed so certain and obvious and reasonable just a few short ticks ago. His palms start to sweat—or, wait, _no_ , just the _one_ palm, he remembers with a wince. He drops his gaze to his left (and _only_ ) hand, watching carefully and focusing on the sensation of the texture of his pants as he wipes his sweaty palm, counting his breaths. “M-maybe she won’t want—” he starts, clears his throat, shakes his head. “Maybe we should just...leave her be? We can find somewhere else to sit...”

“ _What?_ ” Cee’s voice is surprised, her expression shifting from disbelief to understanding as she turns back to look at him. “No, c’mon, don’t be like that,” she says, reaching back and grabbing his sleeve to tug him along, with only a miniscule roll of her eyes. “This was _your_ idea, remember? Besides, she won’t wanna sit with strangers any more than we do.”

They're fair points, he has to give her that. Or, at any rate, he has to accept that he’s failed to come up with a compelling enough argument against either of them by the time she pulls him up short at the entrance to Tess’s compartment.

He stands there dumbly, wondering what he could possibly have to say to a woman like her that would be worth saying. But Cee just rolls her eyes again, and goes, “Hey, can we sit with you?”

Tess Stone—formerly known as Precious Aurel, estranged daughter of arguably the wealthiest family this galaxy has ever seen—blinks and turns to look at them, her eyes—both the natural and the synthetic—going wide with surprise.

“ _What—?_ ” she gasps, pushing herself up out of the seat like a different vantage point might make their presence here make sense. Her gaze darts between their faces, her parted lips starting to curl upward at the corners as she rests her hands on her hips. “What are you _doing here?_ ”

Ezra clears his throat, licks his lips. “Well, we heard there’s a decent Sanctuary out in the Lariat,” he tells her, fishing the green card she’d given them out of his pocket for her to see. “It seems I’m a little overdue for a checkup.”

She laughs and shakes her head, then bites her lip like she’s trying to force herself into a serious expression and failing pretty spectacularly. “I-I won’t be in charge of your care again,” she points out. “I’m not a surgeon or a prosthetist, someone else will be working with you this time around.”

“That’s fine,” he says with a nod. As much as he’d enjoyed having such a legitimate reason for her to touch him so often, he would be able to live without it. Probably. “I’m sure they’ll do their best.”

“Oh I guarantee they will,” she said sternly, “or they’ll have me to answer to. C’mon, come in before someone else tries to take these.”

It’s one of the smaller compartments, just two benches facing each other, with foldaway armrests that can divide them into two wide or three narrow seats. There isn’t a door, but it’s secluded enough, with a curtain that can be unrolled for a little extra privacy. Ezra lets Cee go in first, watching her claim the seat across from Tess’s, where they can share the viewport. He hitches his pack up higher on his shoulder, and nods to the spot beside the MT’s. “If you let me sit with you, I’ll let you hog the armrest.”

She laughs, scooping up the medkit she had resting there, clearing the space for him. “How could I refuse such a generous offer?”

He grins, glad to know she’s not one to be made uncomfortable by arm jokes—he knows Cee’s been getting sick of them, so it’ll be good to have someone else to inflict them on. The seat cushion flips up, and he stashes his pack inside, somehow surprised by how little space it takes up. He doesn’t have much, just some toiletries and the couple changes of clothes he’d picked up on the Pug, a few packs of Bits Bars just in case, the bottles of painkillers and biogel Stone had given him, a spare battery for the headphones Cee wears around her neck. They’d made less off his aurelac than he’d hoped for but more than he'd realistically been expecting, and even with another mouth to feed it's enough to land them both on their feet; but he’d always been the sort to travel light, and hadn’t seen the point in loading himself down with unnecessary purchases before they even got to Aphelia and could really assess their situation. Still, the lean bag looks sad in there by itself, and he flips the cushion back down with a sigh.

The seats are a little worn but far more comfortable than they look, for which he is deeply grateful—even at the speeds they’ll be traveling, it'll take about forty standard hours before the tram reaches the Lariat system. The compartment has plenty of room to stand, and the corridor makes a loop a few hundred spans long in case they want to stretch their legs. He’s starting to wonder whether this really is much of a worse way to travel than a private ship.

“I’m glad you two made it off the _Pivot_ okay,” Tess is saying, easing herself back down into the seat beside him. “I tried to ask about you, but Chief Hollis isn’t exactly my biggest fan, not much inclined to do me any favors.”

"I would not imagine so," he says, thinking of the self-righteous, tight-assed Chief SecTech that'd sat in on their interview. "And I mean that as a compliment."

"I take it as one," she agrees with a nod. "He's a sack of shit with a badge, and doesn't let anyone forget it."

"We didn't make any trouble for you, did we?" Cee asks. "He didn't seem to believe us when we said you didn't know anything."

“Oh, I bet that really salted his coffee, too,” she says with a gleeful grin. “But you don’t need to worry about me; Kaslo had a couple questions, but I reminded them they only gave me a five-person crew for a full ship, and they shut up quick. Anybody could’ve missed something under those conditions.”

"And yet you did not," Ezra points out.

"No, of course not." She turns to face him, an amused gleam in her eye. "Anyway, how are you feeling? Can I take a look?"

"I thought you weren't in charge of my care anymore?" he reminds her, though he's already leaning toward her so she can grab him more easily.

"Yeah, well, old habits," she shrugs. "Indulge me."

It isn't a request, and _fuck_ , he wishes there was a polite way for him to let her know what that bossy, professional, Chief MedTech mien does to him. But he also does _not_ want her to stop, so for once he simply keeps his mouth shut, and lets her undo the sloppy knot he’d tied in the sleeve of his shirt and roll it up above his stump.

From her medkit, she retrieves a bottle of disinfectant and spreads some over her hands, her movements practiced and methodical, and no less entrancing for the fact that he’s watched her do this twenty times or more. "How's your pain?" she asks, her words dipping fully into the low, soothing, interested-but-also-slightly-distracted tone that his ears can't quite get enough of.

"It's fine," he says, and she quirks a brow, unrolling the padded sock that's insulating his striated layers of biogel and synthetic skin, obviously unimpressed by this answer. He sighs, and gestures out into the corridor, the stragglers still searching for seats. "I've usually been about a four. It's just...the crowd."

"I'm sorry," she murmurs. "Yeah, you're a bit inflamed here. Is that just from being jostled?"

He glances down just long enough to take note of his own reddened skin, then turns away. "Must be."

"Okay. I think I have something that'll help."

Ezra keeps his gaze on the corridor as she rummages in her bag. He sees a passenger notice the empty seat next to Cee, sees the way his eyes light up as he takes note of the teenage girl. With a grunt, he stands up and fills the doorway, fixing the man with a genuine glower. "This one’s full."

The passenger takes one look at his face, another at what's left of his arm, goes more than a little green around the gills and scurries off.

"Think you could be slightly less terrifying about that?" Cee asks, looking up from the book in her hands.

He sits back down with a grin and a wink. "Not a chance."

She rolls her eyes, and goes back to reading.

"Can't wait to have to treat the ulcer you just gave him," Tess mutters, but there’s a hint of a smile about her pretty lips.

He opens his mouth to respond, but then she's touching him again, smoothing some kind of cool cream along the skin above his dressing. He hadn't really been consciously aware of how badly it was aching, until the sharp contrast of this relief struck him breathless and stupid.

"Is that better?" she asks softly.

He heaves a sigh, tries not to sag back too far in his seat, and nods.

"Good. It's just a mild NSAID, so it might not be enough to get this inflammation down. Let me know if you feel it starting to wear off, and I’ll get you another dose, okay?"

"Sure." Her hands are soft, careful as she always is with him, and he bites the inside of his cheek and focuses on keeping his breathing even, to keep from thinking of anywhere else she might be willing to touch him like that. He casts around, trying to remember what he'd been wanting to say a moment ago. "You... That passenger... Are you on duty here?"

She huffs a laugh. "I think I'm _always_ on duty, y'know? Feels that way, at least. But yes, Tendei offers a discount to accredited MTs if they're willing to offer medical assistance during the passage. Saves them from having to hire and staff a dedicated team. So don't worry if I go running out of here, I promise I'll be back."

He nods, watching as she replaces the sock, lets his sleeve back down, then ties a far more secure knot and rolls the excess fabric back up, tucking it in securely just below his shoulder.

She cocks her head to the side, and reaches up to tap a gentle finger against the center of his chest. "What about this?"

The upper half of his shirt closes with a row of buttons, and he's left the top three undone—in part because they're a bitch to fasten one-handed, in part because he's just never liked anything too tight against his neck. He reaches up and pops open a few more for her, so she can get at his tender, fresh scar.

Her fingertips, as always, are a little cold as she pokes and prods at the newly-grown skin. She hums softly, a pleased sound, and nods her head. “This looks good. It’s healing well.”

“Yeah, well, I had a great MT.”

Tess smiles, leans back slightly and starts doing his buttons back up for him. “Yeah? I hear she’s the _best_.”

Ezra’s never had much of what one might call a “type”, able to find something beautiful in just about anything if he finds a reason to look for it, content to accept pleasure as it comes; but if there is one quality he finds himself consistently and unquestionably attracted to, a pride in one’s work—and the skill to deserve it—seems to get him every time. Maybe that’s why she affects him so strongly, this woman so competent and confident and comely, all at once.

He lifts his hand and lays it over hers, rubs the pad of his thumb against the knuckle of her index finger, and tells her, “She is, at that.”

Her eyes snap up to meet his—and it’s hard to tell, what with the implant, but he's fairly sure her right pupil has gone a little dilated. Her tongue darts out to wet her lips, and he finds himself drawn to the motion, enchanted by the way the color of her plump lower lip transitions from brown to pink. He thinks he could spend hours on that lip alone, before he ever even thought to move on to the rest of her.

Something rumbles beneath them, and a chime sounds overhead, and Tess blinks and pulls back a fraction, focusing on finishing with his shirt as the ship’s automated message system announces their imminent departure in a slew of different languages.

But she leaves the top three buttons undone for him, and the tip of her index finger drags along his skin just below his collarbone in a way that is nothing short of enticing, before she turns away and disinfects her hands again and settles back in her seat. When the announcement finishes, she leans forward and nods toward Cee’s book. “Did you get that from Kyung-Soon?”

The teenager looks up in surprise. “The other MT? Yeah, she said I could take it. Is...that okay?”

“That’s _great_ ,” Tess assures her with a grin. “You know, I’ve got her personal contact code. If you want, when you finish, maybe we could ship it out to her and ask her to send another?”

Cee’s whole countenance lights up. “I... _Really?_ I mean, d’you think she’d remember me?”

“Oh, I _know_ she would,” she laughs. “Her family cohort has like seventeen kids, last I heard, and she remembers _all_ of their birthdays. She’s great at recommendations, too. If you write her something about what you do and don’t like about that one, I guarantee she’ll send you something good.”

“Creamy,” the girl says, then bites her lip a little nervously. “I, uh... I actually finished it already, back on the Pug. But I think I wanna read it a couple more times before sending it back, if that’s okay?”

“That good, huh? Maybe I’ll have to read it, too. What’s it about?”

Ezra settles back into his seat, returning the bulk of his attention back to the corridor and the strangers going past, shooting an effectively dark glare at anyone who so much as looks at their empty seat, while Cee regales Tess with the tale of the deep sea mining crew, and the ghostly, menacing merfolk who manage to infiltrate their ship and pick them off one by one.

* * *

It’s a couple hours later—the girls have moved on from books they’ve enjoyed to talk of Tess’s time at New Zambezi, the political journalism degree she’d pursued until her brother’s death redirected her interests to medicine, and how she’d picked up part-time jobs at the library and coffeeshop to pay her way after she ran out of Aurel family heirlooms to peddle—when Ezra spots the Tendei attendant hurrying down the corridor, poking their head into a nearby compartment for a lingering moment, then turning and heading purposefully toward this one.

His initial thought is that it’s something he’s done; a passenger complaining about a look he’d thrown their way, or someone who’s managed to recognize him for a past misdeed, or _something_. He reaches instinctively for his pistol, though consciously he knows there’s little it can do by way of protection, not without bolts, not against a corporate employee, not when they’re well away from Puggart’s Bench and deep into the black.

But the attendant barely even spares him a glance as they lean into the doorway—they only have eyes for Tess, and he can’t say he blames them. “MedTech Stone?”

She’s on her feet, medkit in hand, shifting from amicable chatter to professional precision in barely an instant. “What is it?”

“This way, please,” they instruct, and she follows them out, both moving quickly.

Ezra shares a look with Cee, then lurches to his feet, propping himself against the doorway where he can keep an eye on her. They stop at that same compartment, seven doorways down on the opposite side of the corridor. He can just make out the white-haired passenger she’s gone to treat, propped at the edge of the seat, while Tess crouches down on one knee and opens her kit and gets to work.

“Everything okay?” Cee asks, and he turns to her and nods.

“Just MT stuff, looks like.”

She nods, too, and lifts her headphones from around her neck to place them over her ears. But before she switches them on, she tells him, “I’m glad we did this. I think it’s a good plan.”

“Me too, birdie,” he agrees with a smile, turning back to watch.

He isn’t the only one; the activity has drawn the attention of a few other passengers, peeking past curtains or poking their heads through doorways. There’s a young man with shaggy, unkempt dark hair coming from further up the ship, who blatantly stops and stares until the attendant shoos him away.

But Tess doesn’t seem to notice them, or anything at all except for the patient in front of her—not until she’s wrapping things up, packing up her kit and saying some last parting words to the passenger, and she turns to her left to push the hair out of her eyes and notices him standing there, staring at her. It’s a little too far for him to make out her expression, but for a moment she goes very still, watching him as intently as he’s been watching her.

Then the patient asks some last thing, and she turns away to answer, and he's left wondering what it is, exactly, that she sees when she looks at him.

She returns to the compartment with a tired but pleased expression on her sweet face, settling back into her seat with a sigh.

"Everything alright?" he asks, and she nods quickly.

"Oh, yeah; high blood pressure and a fear of space travel don't mix, but I got him stable. I'll probably have quite a few calls like that, before we're through." She covers her mouth to stifle a yawn, and adds, "The person from Tendei said the food cart's coming around soon, so that's good. Hope the coffee's decent."

"Yeah? Try not to end up wearing it this time," he teases, and she reaches over and bats at him.

"Hilarious, you are," she grumbles.

"I like to think so." He looks around, checking to be sure there aren't any eavesdroppers in the corridor, that Cee's fully shifted into _moody teenager mode_ —headphones on, with the new journal he'd bought her on the Pug open in her lap, pen scritching away—and turns to Tess with a serious expression. "Is this...okay?"

She frowns. "Which part?"

" _Us_ ," he says, a little stupidly, gesturing between himself and Cee. "That we followed you here, I mean."

"Oh." She blinks, and her lips quirk up into a crooked smile. "It was a bit of a surprise, but...yeah. You know, I've never been to Aphelia before; I don't know anyone in the system, just my contacts at the clinic, and even then I've only seen stills of their faces. I think it'll be...nice. To have a couple friends I already know, when I get there."

He nods slowly, thinking that sounds an awful lot like what he and the kid had said. Without her dad, Ezra is now all she has, and he'd burned just about all of his remaining bridges when he lost his crew and his ship. Their options of where to go next had seemed dauntingly vast, without any such ties to give them direction. It had only been a joke at first, his suggestion that they check the Lariat tram's bookings; but it _had_ seemed as good a place as any, and the more they'd laughed about it, the more appealing the idea had become.

“Are you two..?” Tess begins, sounding hesitant, an unusual tone for her. “Are you two planning to stick around for a while? After you’ve received treatment?”

“I think so. It’s up to her, though,” he says, nodding in Cee’s direction. “I told her I’d take her anywhere she wants to go, and it may not be worth much but I am indeed a man of my word. So if she doesn’t like it there we’ll move on; but she’s got a strong desire for some friends her own age and a tick more schooling, so if we can find her a good one on Aphelia, I imagine she’ll be glad to stay.”

“Good,” Tess says, turning to look out the viewport again, but not before he catches sight of the warm, soft smile spreading across her features.

He takes another look out the corridor, wary of any more tram attendants heading this way and looking like they’re about to snag her away in the middle of conversation. When he doesn’t see anyone, her turns back to her and clears his throat. “Hey, can I ask you something personal? It’s been on my mind for a tick now, and I’m keen to know its answer.”

She straightens in her seat and turns to him, brows drawing together, a cautious look in her eye. After a moment’s hesitation, she holds up an imperious finger. “You can ask. But I reserve the right not to answer if I don’t want to.”

“That sounds like fair terms to me.”

“Alright.” She lowers her hand, takes a deep breath. “Hit me.”

“Why ‘ _Tess_ ’?” he blurts, taking a little pleasure in the surprise that splashes across her expression. She’s so...composed all the time, so sure of herself and her actions, and that’s—well, it certainly has its appeal, he won’t deny that. But so far, these little morsels of her true nature, revealed when he’s managed to throw her off track, have been the most delectable, the most secret and surprising insights into who she is. “I mean, I understand the ‘Stone’ thing, but where does ‘Tess’ come from? There has to be a reason.”

“You...‘understand the _Stone_ thing’?” she echoes, looking a little skeptical.

He shrugs. “Well, sure. A bit self-referential, isn’t it? You don’t think aurelac has any value—not a _gem_ , nothing special, just a rock. Am I on the right track?”

Her face seems carefully blank. “Technically, it’s a rhizome.”

“Doesn’t really roll off the tongue quite so well, though, does it? ‘Tess _Rhizome’_?”

“Speaking of which,” she begins, drawing up her knee and shifting in the seat so she’s facing him fully, an amused but somehow suspicious expression on her face as she taps a finger against her left cheekbone, “I’ve got access to the ship’s manifest, you know, and the only passengers that could be you two are Ezra and Cee _Sky_. What’s that about?”

He grins, waggling his eyebrows at her, just a little. “You like it?”

“I’m undecided,” she declares, crossing her arms—and, well, if she didn’t do it to draw his attention to the truly captivating line of cleavage peeking out from the neckline of that sweater, or the tantalizing curves of collarbone and shoulder revealed as her left sleeve keeps slipping further down, she at least doesn’t tell him off for what must be some damnably obvious ogling. “I can’t tell if you’re making fun of me or not.”

He snaps his eyes back up to hers, surprised out of what he’s trying to keep a _respectful_ appreciation of all that smooth dark skin by the accusation and the subtle bite behind it. “I would never,” he assures her, and hopes she can hear and believe the honesty in his voice. “No, Kyrie, I think... What you’ve told me, what you’ve done; I wouldn’t dream of belittling such a thing. You _inspired_ me, is all. My own name is no longer so friendly to me as it once was, and I found myself in need of a new one, one that I could offer Cee without fear of the retribution for past deeds it might attract. And I thought of you, and... Well, even for all my years and harvests, I couldn’t very well assume a claim to any stones, precious or otherwise; but I was a pilot, once upon a time, and I thought the substitution might be an...aspirational one, perhaps.”

“...Oh,” she says softly, the sound of it scarcely more than a breath. She drops her gaze, staring down at her own fingers twisting together in a kind of nervous tic, and for a moment he worries he’s been a little _too_ honest, that he’s made her uncomfortable by revealing just how high she sits in his esteem. He opens his mouth to try to walk some of that back, but she beats him to it. “There used to be this children’s serial on the Stream when I was growing up. It was big on Central, but I don’t know if it went much farther. It was all about this girl who lived on a homestead in the Fringe, and all the trouble she got up to out there...”

“ _Oh_ ,” he gasps, starting to put the pieces together. “What, ‘Tess of the Frontier’? You were a fan?”

“Oh, no, I _hated_ it,” she clarifies with a grin, finally lifting her eyes to meet his again, though only briefly. “I thought it was childish and trite, the characters were annoying, and none of it was anywhere near an authentic representation of what Fringeling life was like—not that I knew a goddamn thing about the Fringe, of course, but even I could tell it was insulting.”

Ezra laughs and nods his head in agreement. “Yeah, I can’t say it had much appeal around San Bexar.”

She huffs a laugh, and shoots him another furtive glance. “That where the accent’s from, then? You’re a Bexaro?”

“I was once,” he admits, and taps his index finger against the armrest between them. “Don’t get distracted. You named yourself after a snot-nosed caricature in a derogative kid’s show?”

“ _No_. Well, sort of. But not like _that,_ ” she scoffs, rolling her eyes. “It was just... Well, it was well known. And I was...kind of a little shit, if I’m honest. Never any good at performing my assigned role, at any rate. No one ever paid attention to Beau and I unless we were actively getting into trouble. He chose to use this power for good, whereas _I_... Well, let’s just say I was a lot of fun at parties; but the only parties I ever got invited to were embezzlement opportunities disguised as fundraisers, and no one who willingly shows up to something like that has any sense of humor.”

“I would imagine not,” he tells her, grinning as he pictures the girl from that poster Kato prayed to every night, barefoot and cackling as she outran her parents’ private security down some vast, gilded corridor. He’d always found that mass-produced image of her intriguing—not for the subject it depicted, nor the intricate style of hair and dress, nor even for the regal expression, but for the gleam in her eyes of mischief and misery in equal measure, which the artist had seemed unable to buff away. The fact that he’s here now, speaking to her on such intimate terms, learning from her own mouth that the girl in the picture had been suffused with both to a greater extent than he’d ever imagined, feels as though it shouldn’t be possible.

“So I would commit a mild faux pas or several,” she says dismissively, “and everyone would react like I’d just stabbed their grandparent, and then Beau would step in. And he would always brush it off and say, ‘Oh, she’s just being _Tess_ right now,’ and everyone would laugh because everybody knew that show, they all thought it was a joke. And maybe it was at first, I dunno, but it became... Like a code, I guess. Something the two of us shared, something to remind us that we weren’t the things our parents designed us to be—that we could be something else, something _more_.”

She shakes her head with a sigh, tipping her head to the side to rest against the seat back, and finally she meets his eye again. “He was the only part of that life I wanted to keep, so I chose the name he called me by. And I’m glad... With the work I do, and the little bit of good it does in the galaxy, I’m glad that’s the name people know.”

Ezra nods solemnly in agreement. “I think I would’ve liked to meet your brother.”

“Oh, he would’ve _loved_ you,” she says, without hesitation.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah, for sure.” She grins, the look of mischief in her eye strong enough to overcome the misery, if only for a moment. “We Aurels always had _terrible_ taste in men.”

* * *

When Ezra wakes, he’s disoriented, warm, and comfortable—all much more so than usual. It takes a moment to get his bearings, and it’s only because he’s nuzzled his face deeper into whatever he’s laying on and felt a soft sigh across his cheek in response that he realizes he isn’t sleeping on a _pillow_ but a _person_. And not just any person...

He remembers drawing the curtain and lowering the cabin lights, remembers himself and Cee and Tess retrieving blankets and pillows from the overhead storage, remembers raising the footrest and reclining the seat backs.

He does _not_ remember snuggling up so close to Tess that he could press his face into the crook of her neck and feel the softness of her skin and smell her herbal soap. He does not remember her reaching up to hook her hand into the collar of his shirt, so her fingers could curl against the warmth of his chest.

It’s... Well, he can’t really imagine many better ways to wake and find himself, can’t remember the last time he’d slept so deeply, without dreams of the Green Moon. He pulls back a bit, just far enough to be able to see her brow draw together as she notices the loss, to hear the soft, sad noise she makes, and to watch as she blearily blinks her eyes open.

But they don’t focus on him, instead narrowing at something _behind_ him, her brow furrowing deeply in confusion. “ _What..?_ ” she croaks.

He cranes his neck to look, surprised to find the figure of a man standing there wide-eyed, parting the curtain with one hand while the other... While the other _grips Tess’s medkit_.

Their eyes meet. A moment later, the other man turns and runs.

Ezra’s lurching out of the seat in a flash, but his balance is still a challenge and he stumbles against the doorway, fumbles through the curtain, and by the time he emerges in the corridor the thief is halfway to the next car already. He tears off after him.

Speed has never been his strongest suit, but the man he’s chasing keeps risking glances back, getting distracted and losing his footing, while Ezra is focused and _angry_ and ready to rip him apart, and it only takes the length of two cars before he can lunge and grab and drag the man to the ground. It earns him a boot to the gut and an elbow to the face, but even without his better arm he’s still bigger and stronger than this scared little pisser; even when the kip manages to pull a knife, this just makes him _angrier_ , and he snatches it out of trembling hands with a snarl, strikes the hilt against the younger man’s temple.

The blow clearly dazes him, and Ezra tosses the kid over, cheek pressed into the carpet, pinning him and his arms down with the weight of his body as he rests the knife’s blade against the side of his neck.

“ _This_ ,” he hisses, just barely loud enough to be heard over the thief’s desperate, panicked breaths, “was a _very_ poor choice, don’t you think? Now, you may be wondering what you might possibly say to convince me not to kill you. Hm?”

“ _Ezra_.”

He ignores Tess’s voice, focuses instead on the thief’s wide, pleading, terrified eye and the line of skin whitening beneath the pressure of the knife’s edge, ready to split open with only the slightest twitch of his fingers. “Well, I’m here to tell you there’s _nothing_. Whether I do or not, the choice is mine, not yours.”

“Ezra, that’s _enough_.”

There’s a cold edge to her voice he’s never heard before. He grudgingly lifts his eyes to the woman standing before him, but she isn’t even looking at him, just glaring down at the man on the floor with her brow creased and her lips pressed into a tight line. Without a word or a glance, she thrusts her hand out to him, palm up—waiting, but not patiently.

With a growl, he pulls the knife from the kip’s neck and hands it over. “ _Tess_ —”

“ _No_ ,” she says firmly, turning her head away from them both. As soon as she does, he hears the sound of booted feet hurrying toward them, can just make out the shapes of three SecTechs hurrying toward them, lit only by the darkened corridor’s running lights. Tess scoops her stolen medkit off the floor, and snaps, “Go check on Cee.”

He’s never been one for obeying orders, and the tension and adrenaline coursing through him are difficult to redirect. But he does _not_ want to fuck with SecTech, not unarmed and _one_ -armed, not today. With another growl, he presses down hard on the back of the thief’s head to leverage himself up, then retreats back the way he’d come, sticking to the shadows to avoid being spotted. His ears can only just make out the lilt of Stone’s MedTech voice and the harsh answering grunts of the ST's, drifting down the corridor after him.

He stops outside their compartment for a moment, lets himself take three deep breaths before he pulls back the curtain and steps inside to check on Cee.

She’s still fast asleep, sprawled out across her entire bench, headphones around her neck, the borrowed evil-ghost-merfolk book fallen to the floor. With a sigh, he picks it up and smooths out the pages, then closes it and rests it more carefully on the bench beside her head. When he tugs the blanket up over her shoulders, she mutters something incoherent, grabs the hem, and rolls over.

He runs his hand through his hair, drags it down his face, still tense and frustrated. He shouldn’t have hesitated, shouldn’t have taunted him, should’ve put that knife where it belonged and been done with it before she’d had a chance to stop him. She might not have agreed, but who was she to make that decision for him? What right did she have to tell him what to do?

Cursing under his breath—not wanting to wake the kid—he stomps around the compartment, straightening the reclined seats he and Tess had abandoned, swiping their blankets up off the floor and tossing them onto the bench, folded as best as he can manage.

He knows he isn’t being fair, which just makes it worse. If she hadn’t stopped him, SecTech would’ve been on him in an instant, and he would’ve spent the rest of the passage in the brig at best—if they even _have_ a brig on one of these, and they didn’t just opt to space him instead.

With a huff, he glances over his shoulder at Cee again. If Tess hadn’t stopped him, the kid would’ve been alone and stranded all over again, and he’d _promised_ he wouldn’t let that happen.

Grinding his teeth, he turns on his heel and marches back out to the corridor, bracing himself to go find Tess and...make sure he hasn’t dropped her in it, at the very least. And...maybe he’ll even apologize. Possibly.

Nearly every compartment he passes is dark, with curtains drawn, which is good because it means no one’s likely to have seen him try to murder another passenger, nor do they spot him now, stalking along in the shadows with his stump of an arm and a harsh look on his face. He’s more than a little recognizable these days, and the last thing he needs right now is some busybody reporting a “menacing figure” poking around the ship while everyone else sleeps. But no, he makes the trek back to her unbothered, relieved to see that the SecTechs have dissipated.

The relief dries up in an instant, though, when his brain catches up to what he _is_ looking at and he realizes the woman he’s come in search of is kneeling on the ground, medkit open beside her, wiping blood off the face of the very man who’d tried to snatch it.

“What the _hell_ are you doin’?” he hisses, trying to keep his exasperated voice down and not alert any other passengers. The thief starts and turns, his eyes going wide and fearful again.

Tess grips his chin tightly, turns his head back the other way. “My _job_ ,” she grunts, not even looking his way, attention fully focused on the wound she’s treating, the wound _he’d_ inflicted.

“H-he tried to k- _kill me_ ,” the scrawny kid barely manages to hiss, squirming to try to escape Tess’s hold, but she’s got him tight.

“Yeah, well, he still might, so sit still.” He freezes in response, and she ticks on her implant’s light to give her a better view while she dabs some cream onto the gash at his temple.

It’s the hair that trips Ezra’s memory, shaggy and overgrown and a right mess now, and his anger flares up again as he takes a step forward. “I saw you before,” he snarls, jabbing a finger toward his face when Tess turns in surprise. “He came sniffin’ around when you helped that first passenger. Think I might’a seen him again after. You _casing us_ , you little shit?”

Tess turns back, the light from her eye shining full on the thief’s pale, trembling face. “Why?” she demands, her tone cold and clipped. “What were you looking for?”

“I-I-I-I don’t _know_ ,” he whines, shaking his head as best he can beneath her grip. “I-it’s for m-my _sister_ , she’s real sick.”

Aw, _hell_. “Tess, _don’t_ —” he starts, but she ignores him.

“What’s wrong with her?”

“I d-don’t _know!_ The doc we saw on the Pug said it’s nothing, but she’s getting _worse_ , I had to do _something!_ ”

Oh, god _damn it_. “Don’t even think about it, Stone.”

She ignores him still, blinking the light off and snapping her kit closed and hopping to her feet. “Take me to her.”

Son of a _bitch_. “You _can’t_ be serious.”

It’s like he isn’t even there. She just bends over and hauls the kid to his feet, following as he stumbles further down the corridor. Ezra lets loose a string of curses, and stomps off after them.

When they reach the compartment, he makes sure the curtain is raised but waits outside, pacing in front of the doorway, fuming in his head.

It ain’t right. The fact that a woman as soft as her has lasted this long working in the Fringe doesn’t make any kind of sense. He knows she’s _got_ a spine, knows she isn’t afraid to put her foot down when she wants to; but all it takes is one sad sob story, and suddenly she’s bending over backwards to help out another pathetic sack of bones. He knows; he’s _been_ one of them.

And he knows someday that’s gonna bite her in the ass. Probably already has before, but he doesn’t... He doesn’t wanna _see_ it happen.

He doesn’t wanna be the _reason why_.

Fuck. No. He’s _angry_ with her, this is _not_ the time to get all sappy and tenderhearted himself.

He shakes his head, and catches the eye of the still-trembling, sanctimonious little brother. He hasn’t been listening in, only catching snippets of Tess’s clipped voice—things like “underlying condition” and “chronic pain” and “ _Sanctuary_ ”—but the kid already seems about ready to piss himself, and the look Ezra shoots him only makes it worse.

 _Good_.

Tess emerges a little while later, and he doesn’t hesitate or allow her to do so, just puts his hand on the small of her back and guides her in the direction they came from, making damn well sure she doesn’t happen to spot a three-legged puppy or an abandoned baby or some other such bullshit along the way. She doesn’t say anything, just lets him lead her away—at least, she does until they reach the final join between cars they have to pass through to get back to Cee, where she twists and pulls away from him.

With a sigh, he turns to face her, but she doesn’t look at him, just sags back against the exposed metal wall, letting her eyes close and her head tilt up toward the ceiling. It takes her three deep breaths, held for a moment and then released slowly, to say what she apparently needs to say.

“D’you got any Mellow?”

Ezra opens his mouth, blinks, and closes it again. Had he heard her right? “Do I... _what?_ ”

She releases another slow breath, reaches up and rubs at her left eye tiredly. “I know I can’t, not on duty. It’s just... I could _really_ use a smoke right now,” she mutters.

He huffs and shakes his head in disbelief, resting his hand on his hip. “You’re the one with all the drugs,” he reminds her.

“Yeah, but not the fun kind.”

He grinds his teeth, reminds himself that he’s angry with this woman, does not allow himself to indulge in a daydream about their getting stoned together... Well, not for very _long_ , anyway.

He curses under his breath, and shakes his head again. “If you’re waiting for an apology, it isn’t coming.”

She opens her eyes to frown at him, looking confused; then her brows shoot up in surprise, and she lets her head thump back against the wall. “ _Shit_ ,” she sighs. “You think I’m mad at _you_.”

Ezra frowns, lifts his hand to rub his jaw where the kid had elbowed him, feeling like he’s really lost track of this conversation somehow and it’s barely even started. “Are you...not?”

She scrubs a hand down her face, shaking her head softly. “No, Ezra, I... Sorry. I’m not good at... I mean, I tend to get... _snappy_ when I’m upset. But if someone’s hurt, I’ve gotta patch them up, and it’s not really a good look to tell a patient they’re a dumbass piece of shit who’s lucky they didn’t get themselves killed, y’know? So sometimes I snap at the wrong people, instead.” She heaves another sigh, lowers her head to meet his eye. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have directed that at you.”

If he listens carefully, he can just pick up the hint of a Central accent in her voice. He hasn’t really noticed it before, except for when she says his name— _E_ _z_ ra, heavy on the Z—but now, tired and upset and somehow, confusingly, penitent, it makes her words a little crisp around the edges. He huffs, turning away, refusing to let it get to him. “You could’ve just let me kill him.”

“No, I couldn’t have. My implant’s connected to the tram, I knew SecTech was just down the hall. You think I’m gonna let you slit a man’s throat right in front of them?”

“I’ve done worse.”

“I’m sure you have.” She pushes off from the wall with a shrug, turning as if to head back to their seats. “But I doubt we could’ve talked you out of that one.”

He catches her arm before she can take more than a step, tugs her back to face him. “I’m not...” he begins, uncertain why it seems so imperative, so necessary to tell her this now, to make her see. “I’m not a good man.”

She blinks, opens her mouth to say something, closes it, and blinks again. “I’m...not entirely sure I believe you.”

Ezra shakes his head, exasperated. She needs to _know_ , he needs to _tell her..._

What, exactly? What is he even hoping to gain from this?

Maybe it’s just that he wants to stop pretending. Maybe he wants to not feel like a fraud every time she smiles at him. Maybe he wants to scare her off from showing him any more sweetness, to stop her giving him any more reasons to want her.

Because it certainly isn’t that he wants her to take a long, hard look at all his past deeds and find him deserving anyway. It can't be. He’s long since given up hope of ever finding anything like that.

“Listen,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest and taking a step closer to him, craning her own neck to look into his eyes—had she _always_ been so little? “Cee seems to think you’re alright, and that girl strikes me as a particularly good judge of character. I find myself inclined to agree with her.”

"I _killed her father_ ,” he snarls.

"I know," she says plainly, still meeting his eyes, not even looking like she _wants_ to look away. "And she still trusts you. She still thought you were worth saving."

He shakes his head, wanting to call her wrong, to tell her he _isn't_ , to prove that he's just a ruthless, murderous fringeling, unworthy of a moment of her attention let alone her _kindness_.

But then Tess lifts a hand, in front of his face and then higher, teasing the tips of her fingers into his hair, brushing through the curls where brown hair turns to white, and the gentle touch packs a wallop that knocks every thought out of his head.

“I’m not afraid of you, Ezra,” she breathes, and he watches her lower the hand and shift the handle of her medkit into it so her other one can fold around his, soft and small but her grip is firm. "So, c’mon. No Mellow, but I think I have some cookies in my pack. I'd say we've earned them."

So he lets her tug him along, down the corridor and back to their compartment and the seats they'd abandoned and the teenage girl still snoozing on the other bench. And he thinks...

Well, Ezra thinks he'd let her take him by the hand and lead him anywhere at all.


	5. Sanctuary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, friends, this one took a little longer than expected. What a fucking week, huh?
> 
> I don't have much to say this time around, except that I'm grateful that, in the moments I could calm my brain down enough to focus on _anything_ , I had this story to work on and distract myself with. I hope it's able to bring you all a bit of distraction as well, and maybe a moment or two of peace. Stay safe out there, and be kind to yourselves, and I hope you enjoy <3

Her shift is winding down, not over just yet but nearly there. The patients seem settled for the evening, her reports are all caught up; she just needs to double-check inventory in the stock room, place orders for anything that’s low, and sign over authorization to Senior MedTech Soren. It’s been a slow week, and while she’s grateful for the lack of surprises, sleep hasn’t come easy lately and she’s more than ready to get home and rest. It’ll only take a tick to finish up, and she has every reason to get it done quickly...but the sight of Ezra leaning against the reception desk, flirting with Niamh, is enough to stop her in her tracks.

She’s missed him. It’s a ridiculous thought—she always seems to talk to him more when he’s gone than when he's here—but it hits her all the same.

When he told her he’d found a job as a shuttle pilot, this wasn’t anything like what she’d expected. And, sure, it'd been her own meddling that caused all this, to some degree—it had seemed like a good idea, an aural nudge in his Rehab MT’s ear, a suggestion that flight sims might be a good fit, if an unusual methodology. Ezra had once piloted his own ship, an old-school _Testin_ , long gone now; she’d thought a bit of practice with something familiar that relied so heavily on muscle memory might help him acclimate to the prosthesis a little faster.

 _Stars_ , had it. He’d been released from rehab shortly after, had taken his sim scores straight to the most reputable shuttle service in the system, had been offered a job nearly on the spot. A few tendays passed about the way she _had_ expected, with him making short hops, transporting passengers about the city, or to and from ships docked at the ports on the outskirts, probably talking their ears off the whole time—even delivering patients and their loved ones to the clinic, on occasion.

She always likes those days, when she introduces herself to the new intakes and gets, "Oh yeah, I've heard _all_ about you," in response—often followed by a long and lengthy complaint about how incessantly verbose their pilot had been, how he'd extolled on the virtues of Sanctuary's mission and the skill of this one's Senior MT. Even so, there are smiles on their faces as they tell her about him. He puts people at ease, and manages to soften up even the crustiest of hardened old prospectors by the time they're delivered into her hands, and she can always look forward to a few nice days of good moods all around after Ezra's made a drop off.

He still gets first pick of Sanctuary’s traffic, whenever he’s on planet. But it only took the service about a month to realize that the chatty fringeling with the suspiciously-blank work history is also one of the best pilots they have on payroll, with wilderness survival skills to boot. She should’ve seen it coming, should’ve known it’d only be a matter of time before they started to offer him the further, rougher, longer routes. The Lariat is, after all, just a tight assembly of dwarf planets curving around a shared sun, each with varying degrees of livability. Plenty of black between Aphelia and the others, but every now and then some dignitary or corp exec needs a jump outside of the normal transit cycles, or a research group requires both a lift and security while they study a rare fungus that only grows in the southern hemisphere craters on Piazzi, or something equally obscure.

A hundred times over, he’s assured her and Cee that there’s nothing half so dangerous on any of these mostly-settled, oxygenated worlds as what they found in the Green Moon. And it isn’t that she worries, really; Ezra can take care of himself, she knows that well. He enjoys the work, and he’s damned good at it, and her opinion doesn’t matter anyway but if it did, that’s more than enough to satisfy her. But it’s been almost a full Aphelian year, nearing 241 of their 28-hour days, since he and his adopted daughter followed her out to this system, and the jobs he gets offered seem to be taking him further and further away, and when he’s gone for so long...

Well, it gives her time to realize she misses him.

There’s a wolfish grin on his face as he chats with Niamh; but when he looks up and spots Tess, still just standing there, watching him like she’s in some sort of a trance, it softens into the gentler, tender sort of smile that he seems to save for her and Cee, for the people in his life who’ve seen past his hard facade to the vulnerable man beneath and chose to stick around all the same. It’s a very good smile.

And it’s gone in a flash—there just long enough for her to see, but it isn’t for anyone else. He turns back with a smirk and snarks a parting word at Niamh, gives em a wink, raps the knuckles of his left hand against the top of the desk. When he turns to swagger over to her, she sees that he isn’t wearing the prosthetic arm, that his gray sweater’s empty sleeve is only loosely twisted and tied out of the way. He says keeping it on for long stretches of time annoys him, that he only wears it when he has to; but what counts for “having to” in Ezra’s mind is an ephemeral and confusing thing. He told her some things about this job, though, and the people he was running—the Piazzi fungal crew turned out to not be anywhere near as prepared for that environment as they’d claimed to be in the security request. Chances were good he hadn’t been able to remove the prosthesis more than a few short times in the three tendays they’d been out there, too busy herding the grad students and their amorously-distracted professors out of harm’s way; if she knows him at all, he probably stripped the arm off the second they hit Aphelia’s atmosphere and landed the shuttle without it.

The thought makes her smile, and he returns it, stopping in front of her—a little too close for polite, but not so close as rude, just a...friendly distance.

Gods, but he looks _good_.

He’s filled out some over the past year, the lean, hard angles of the half-starved man she’d encountered in a stolen pod aboard the _Pivot_ easing into a comfortable softness. His tawny skin has been liberally kissed by the light of their red dwarf, throwing the pale and curving scar on his cheek into stark relief. His hair, on the other hand, has lightened under the same sun, causing the burst of white at the corner of his hairline to appear almost like a mere trick of the light; it’s all grown out just a little shaggier since the last time she’d seen him, those gentle, airy curls floating about his face and brushing against his neck. And his eyes, capable of a truly bone-chilling coldness, are suffused with warmth as they fix on hers.

“Hi, you,” she says, feeling shy and foolish, plain before his radiance.

“Hi, you,” he echoes.

It’s easier, somehow, to talk over comms. Cee has a guest bedroom in Tess’s apartment, for when he’s gone on these long routes, and he tries to at least send a ping every evening to let them know he’s alive (and, hopefully but not always, entirely, _safe_ ) and learn the same about them. Between schoolwork and university prep and hanging out with the friends she’s made, that’s usually about all Cee has time for; so, on the nights Ezra finds himself with words to spare, bored or lonely or fed up with his passengers, it’s often Tess who ends up on the other end of the comm, telling him about her day and asking after his while she cooks dinner or folds laundry or just curls up on the couch with a beer and the sound of his voice.

She can be more open when he’s leagues or moons away, when the static fills their silences comfortably and she can say what’s on her mind without getting distracted by how impossibly dark and deep his eyes are—or how well his patchy scruff of a beard frames his square jaw—or how that curl of white hair just begs to be gently brushed back by her fingers.

This quiet between them now, for example, would be easier to manage if she had an excuse to tear her gaze away from that sweet dimple in his cheek, if she had something else to do with her hands besides clenching them in her pockets. So she does her damnedest not to seem too eager when he angles his right shoulder toward her and asks, a little bashfully, “D’you mind to neaten me up?”

His left hand can scarcely be called his weak one now, with all the work he’s done to make certain he’s as capable without the prosthesis as otherwise; even so, he’s not often one for putting effort into his attire, and a decent knot in the sleeve of a shirt apparently requires more patience than he's willing to spare. Ezra is not a man who asks for help with any ease, especially if it pertains to his amputation, so she's pleased and grateful that he trusts her enough to let her undo his loose work and tie a knot in the empty sleeve and roll up the excess so it holds snugly below his shoulder. She’s had a fair bit of practice at this point, but it doesn’t ever stop feeling like something dear and precious, being allowed to do this for him. And it gives her a reason to be close to him without having to meet his eyes or reckon with the way he looks at her and the fact that he can surely see the flush darkening her cheeks, so that’s nice, too.

“You made good time,” she says, paying unnecessary attention to the weave of the marled gray fabric in her hands. “Didn’t think we’d see you back so soon.”

He puffs out a breath—she’s close enough to feel it against her cheek—and says, “Flew quick. I couldn’t stay out there a tick longer, not with them. One more kip falling down a crevasse for another fucking mushroom and I’d’ve left ‘em behind.”

She snorts a laugh, running her fingers along the folded edge of the sleeve to make certain it lies flat, no seams or ridges to chafe against sensitive skin—and if it gives her an excuse to touch him some more, well, who could blame her? Just _look_ at him. “Cee’ll be glad to have you back early.”

“Oh, I greatly doubt that,” he says, a laugh in his voice. “Likes staying with you more than having to put up with my fat ass, I’d wager.”

“Oh, Ezra, darling,” she chides, patting his shoulder softly before (reluctantly) pulling her hands away from the warmth of his body. “Your ass is many things; _fat_ is definitely not one of them.”

"We can't all of us be blessed with your truly enviable abundance, MT," he says with an exaggerated pout. "But please do indulge me; what _is_ my ass, by your estimation?”

“Smart, mostly,” she answers quickly, then pretends to think about it for a moment. “...Except when it’s being _dumb_.”

He shakes his head. “There’s just no pleasing some people.”

“Well, you know me,” she shrugs. “Never satisfied.”

He’s got that soft smile again, with no one in range to scare it away, and the warmth and fondness of it at such close range could be enough to leave her breathless, if she’s not careful. “I missed you, Tess.”

She shoves her hands back into the pockets of her scrubs, trying not to give in to the impulse to reach out and touch him some more. If he was still far away, if she couldn’t see his face and he couldn’t see hers, she’d tell him the same. But here, like this, at _work_ of all places, it feels too intimate, too vulnerable; so instead she says, “It’s good to have you back, Ezra,” and hopes he understands.

From the way his smile broadens, she’s pretty sure he does.

He licks his bottom lip, takes a breath and opens his mouth to say something further, when the chime of the clinic door takes them both by surprise. He turns to watch the light-haired stranger step in off the street, looking weary and haggard but relieved by Niamh’s friendly greeting and gentle manner. E’s the most experienced receptionist they have, and there’s no danger, only an outpatient or relative or guest or something; but Tess sees the way Ezra’s shoulders have bunched, his trapezius gone tight with caution.

For all his extroversion, all his predisposition to being truly crushed by loneliness, city life doesn’t suit him as well as she’d imagined it would before she knew him better. New Amphora is a far cry from the busiest place she’s ever lived (though the convoluted infrastructure of Aphelia’s earliest settlement has certainly earned its nickname, “the Bottleneck”). Still technically in the Fringe, they're a long way from a real frontier—and as much as Ezra enjoys the company and conversation of other people, he clearly struggles with adapting to the unpredictability of this environment. The man is hardwired to treat every new encounter as potentially dangerous, to react to any surprise with violence or the threat of it.

He hasn’t expressed it in so many (or, more honestly, so _few_ ) words, but she can tell it’s one of the things that draws him to the wetter work of the rough routes—the balance he can draw there, between the controllable space of his shuttle and the challenging wildernesses he finds himself in, serves a much better fit for his breadth of experience and the trauma it’s left him with. He’s a good man, and there’s a ruthlessness that thrives in him, and Tess isn’t one to forget either fact.

“Cee should be getting close to the end of her reading,” she says, speaking steadily, calmly. She doesn’t risk touching him, but the sound of her voice and the mention of the teenager seem enough to grab his attention, to reel him back into himself. “I could go grab her for you, if you’d like. She’s been on an experimental poetry kick lately, so the patients would probably be glad if we cut it short.”

His shoulders ease, and he cracks a smile, even if it doesn’t quite meet his eyes.

Cee volunteers at the clinic for a few hours a week, reading aloud to any patients who want to hear it. She says it’s helping to improve her writing, giving her a better sense of flow and cadence, and the community service looks impressive on university applications. The extra spending money likely doesn’t hurt, either; it isn’t the same at all of Sanctuary’s clinics, but New Amphora’s volunteers get paid a stipend, since one of their Senior MedTechs refuses to accept payment. What would be Tess’s salary instead gets split evenly between however many volunteers they have each week, according to however many hours they put in—not the most consistent or reliable income, sure, but they have a group of semi-regulars who would be sleeping on the streets more often without it, and she likes to see this small portion of her parents’ wealth do at least that much good in the universe.

“There’s no need for all that,” Ezra assures her. “I’m in no kind of rush, now. But I can get out of your hair; I’m sure you’ve things to do.”

“I just have an inventory check,” she says, pointing a thumb back at the supply closet. It's a selfish, silly impulse; but she isn’t quite ready to let him out of her sight again, so soon after getting him back, so she offers, “You’re welcome to keep me company, if you like.”

He gives a real smile again, nods his head and follows her while she slides her badge through the lock and steps into the closet. Ezra stays in the doorway, leaning back against the frame and looking for all the worlds like he’s perfectly content there. And maybe he is, really, but she knows that it’s the best spot to keep an eye on her and the front door and the hall that leads back into the rest of the clinic; it’s a vantage she’s utilized many times before.

But she doesn’t say anything about it, just grabs the notepad off its hook and starts working her way through the shelves.

“How’s the kid?” he asks, his voice light.

Tess hums in response, an acknowledgement that she’s heard him while she quickly counts through the boxes of steri-strips. “She’s been good,” she mutters, penning down the amount, before turning to look at him and giving the question its due consideration. “She’s been...quiet, lately. Worried, I think.”

“About what?” he asks, with such a genuinely concerned expression on his face, it makes something in her chest go tight.

“Not sure,” she admits, shaking her head and ducking a little to check the readouts on the nanobot canisters and jot them down. “University, maybe? Or just school in general? Or, I dunno... Might just be the fact that you guys are still here.”

“How d’you mean?”

“Well, she and her dad were floaters, right? Not her whole life, but long enough to probably feel like it for someone so young. She might not know what it’s like to be on a planet for such a stretch, to keep seeing the same people over and over and know you’ll see ‘em again tomorrow.”

He looks doubtful, reminds her, “We’ve been here almost a _year_ , Tess.”

“Sure. Which is probably longer than she can remember ever staying in one place. Which is probably why it’s hitting her _now_.” She taps a reminder into the pad and sends it to her implant—a note to order more gauze pops up on the edge of her vision—and looks up at him again. “Anyway, it’s just a guess. Could be a million other things.”

He nods his head, his expression gone thoughtful, introspective. “Or any permutation thereof. Think I should talk to her about it?”

“Nah, I imagine prying would just make her withdraw more. But she’s a smart one. Give her time to figure out what she needs, and when she does, I think she’ll ask for it.”

“...Okay,” he agrees slowly, nodding his head.

He’s quiet for so long, thinking over it all, that she’s almost finished with this cabinet by the time he asks, “Am I..? I mean, d’you think I’m doing alright here? At the whole... _dad_ thing?”

She whirls around to gape at him, still standing in the doorway but now rubbing the back of his neck nervously, purposefully avoiding her eyes. “Are you asking _me?_ ”

“Why not?”

“ _Pffft_ , Ezra...” Tess starts, shaking her head, wondering how she ever ended up in this situation. “I was _reared_ by a fleet of nannies and tutors, who’d deposit Beau and I in our parents’ wing of the estate once a day for a pre-scheduled half-hour of ‘socialization’—unless we had some sort of family appearance planned, in which case that counted for our time, and they were absolved of having to see us twice in the same standard cycle. I am hardly an authority for what counts as good parenting. The fact that you _want_ to do it in the first place is well above my expectations.”

“The more you tell me about your parents, Kyrie,” he says, voice dripping with disgust, “the more I hate them. And I already hated ‘em plenty.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” she chuckles, crossing out a line in the notepad—they’re finally, blessedly through that horrible batch of “tropical-flavored” stims that tasted like candy-coated battery acid. Definitely not ordering those again.

Ezra’s quiet for another moment before trying again, apparently not content with her response, or simply in genuine need of her assessment for some reason. “Still, I thought... I mean, you’re good with her. And your opinion is...valuable.” An interesting word choice, which she files away for later consideration. “I don’t know the first thing about taking care of a teenage girl, and I can’t quite tell if I’m helping or hurting. Cee enjoys staying with you when I’m away, I know that, and the money for these trips is good, but... Am I gone too much? How do I know I’m not giving her _too_ much space, and makin’ her think I don’t...wanna be around?”

Tess stands up slowly, sets the pad and stylus aside and crosses the room to prop her shoulder against the doorframe opposite him, giving him her full attention. As much as Ezra loves to spin a tale of past adventures, he doesn't ever reveal much about his own upbringing, tending to change the subject quickly and in such an effortless way that you don't realize he's done it until hours or even days later. He’s always open with her, would likely tell her everything if she asked him outright; but he never pries into the parts of her past she’s less than eager to share, and she’s glad to return that favor.

Still, she’s pieced together enough to know that he was made to mature early, to take care of his mother and quite a number of siblings after his father left them. It doesn’t seem like he’d ever intended on having that sort of responsibility again, but now that he’s got it, it makes a lot of good sense that he wouldn’t want to perpetuate any more of the same heartache he’d once received.

She waits for him to meet her eye, and gives him her honest opinion, speaking gently. “Cut yourself some slack, Ezra. She knows you’re not her dad. But you don’t _have_ to be. You two saved one another in the Green, and when you got out...you _chose_ to keep taking care of her. Not because you had to, not because you were biologically obligated, but because she’s _worth_ taking care of. Now, that is no small thing, you hear me? You’ve been making that choice over and over again, and she is a clever one; she sees you making it. But if you wanna make sure she knows... Well, you’ve got a mind overflowing with words, so don’t stand there and tell me you can’t find a way to arrange 'em just right to explain it to her. I know you far too well to fall for that.”

She does know him— _far_ too well. It’s still baffling sometimes, the way this all happened, how she’d just shown up for work one day and stumbled upon these two lost people in the wilderness, and then they’d followed her home, and now here they all were—held aloft by some common orbit that keeps them drawn together, the strangest facsimile of a family she’s maybe ever seen. And, _gods_ , she wouldn’t trade them for anything.

“Thank you, Tess,” he says, voice barely more than a whisper.

She lays a hand on his arm, lets herself relish in the feeling of the soft, textured sweater over firm muscle and warm flesh—he always runs so hot, always feels so good beneath her perpetually-cold fingers—before turning away and scooping up her notepad and getting back to work.

She affords him two shelves’ worth of counting for quiet contemplation, before she finds herself lowering the notepad again. He isn’t the only one who’s been letting his worry get the better of him, and she’s been in desperate need of getting this one off her chest for a while now, and she supposes this is as good a time as any.

“Can I...ask you something?” She hopes she doesn’t sound as nervous as she feels, but she’s pretty sure it’s seeping through her voice, like resin through tree bark.

Still, his answer is immediate, certain, “Always. Anything.” He flashes a smirk and reaches up to scratch the dark hair sparsely lining his jaw, lifting his chin to nod at the pad in her hands. “Unless you’re having trouble with your math, there, in which case I’ll try to give an answer but can make no guarantees to its accuracy.”

She snorts, shaking her head. “It’s just counting, I’m sure even _you_ could manage.”

He holds out his hand, waggles his fingers with a shit-eating grin. “Not if it goes above six.”

It’s not even a funny joke, but he looks so fucking pleased with himself she can’t help the laugh that bubbles up. “Y’know what? Nevermind. Forget I said anything,” she mutters through chuckles, shaking her head.

“Oh, no, no,” he pleads, voice dipping into a low purr. “Don’t leave me in suspense, sweet girl.” He steps fully into the room, letting the door slide closed, and leans against the cabinet beside her, turning the full force of his soft, genuine smile on her—and if she hadn’t already been blushing from his use of _sweet girl_ , she certainly would be after that. “I promise I’ll be good.”

She swallows hard and turns to him, wills herself not to look away, to watch his reaction carefully. “Are you...happy here?”

It isn’t what she wants to ask, not completely. But it’s the closest she can manage to the real thing, because _Will you_ stay _happy here_ and _Will this be enough for you_ and _Am_ I _enough for you_ and _Will you always be here, with me_ are far, far more desperate and grasping and possessive than she has any right to be. As strangely intimate as this relationship is, he isn’t _hers_ , and she has no claim to him. But these unspoken questions simmer deep in her chest, boiling over whenever she turns her thoughts his way, gnawing at her consciousness and robbing her of sleep and she _needs_ their answers. She needs to be free of this worry, needs to know where she stands, needs to prepare for the grief that will come when Ezra Sky remembers that there’s more out there than she and the star system she’s made her home could ever hope to offer him.

His grin fades but the fondness doesn’t leave his expression, even as his brows draw together, even as his head tilts slightly to one side. “What’s made you think I’m unhappy, Tess?”

She has to bite the inside of her cheek hard and turn away, her nerve all but fleeing her at the way his voice curls around her name. “ _Nothing_ , I just...” She puffs out a breath, gesturing vaguely. “I know prospectors. And I know you’ve found ways to keep things interesting, but babysitting a bunch of student scientists isn’t all that much of an adventure. I just...worry you’re gonna feel like you’re _trapped_ here, and it’s... I don’t want...”

Her voice trails off, and she doesn't bother trying to stop it, doesn't even know what she's trying to say anymore.

But he steps forward, and his hand moves slowly and carefully as it reaches out to take the pen and pad from her hands and set them on the shelf, then rests against her shoulder to gently turn her to face him.

“You know what I loved about prospecting?” he asks, and she has to tell herself to keep breathing but still manages a soft shake of her head. “Was never the travel or the danger, though I admit they suited me better than most. Wasn’t even the pay—not that I’d ever be one to turn down compensation for a job done, well or otherwise. Sure as shit wasn’t all the digging.”

She laughs, and it sounds nervous and breathy even to her own ears, her attention torn between his words and his closeness and his hand still on her shoulder, so heavy and warm. “What, then?”

“The _extraction_ ,” he sighs, his expression drifting toward rhapsodic, his gaze going distant. “You could spend weeks out there and never find a scratch, you know? Just searching and digging and hoping and searching some more, and not a single deposit. Nothin’ at all, and you’re runnin’ low on food and filters, spread out too far from the ship you rode in on to justify headin’ back, come nightfall. If you’re lucky you’ve got the makings of a camp strapped to your back so you can construct a place to lay your head, and if you’re unlucky you’re sleepin’ in your suit and hopin’ like hell you don’t roll over funny while you’re at it and break a seal somewhere. So if you’re _very_ lucky, you wake up in the morning, and then it’s right back to searching and digging and hoping again. And then, suddenly, you get a hit—and it _is_ a hit, Kyrie; a rush like you would scarcely believe. And then it’s a _frenzy_ , scrabbling in the dirt, prayin’ all the while that you don’t put a foot or shovel wrong and lose ‘em to the acid.”

He sidles a little closer, his gaze sharpening to focus on his own hand, now skimming up and over her shoulder, creeping high enough for the calloused pad of his thumb to brush against the side of her neck. She can’t help but lean into the touch, wondering if he can feel her racing pulse, her unsteady breaths.

“And then,” he goes on, hand sliding higher, fingers trailing against her skin, “after all that toil, all that fear, you find somethin’ buried deep, somethin’ you’re sure no other man has ever caught a glimpse of before. And with a little care, a little patience, a little courage...suddenly you find yourself holding something indescribably beautiful in your hand. _That’s_ what I loved, sweet girl, out there in the Green. That feeling, an excess of relief and bliss all bound together in this one little stone—more beautiful than words can say, valuable beyond measure not because of anything it can do but simply because it _is_. That’s what drew me back every time. That’s what you seem to think I might be going without, here.”

There’s no way he doesn’t feel her trembling, as he cradles her cheek in his palm. He shakes his head gently, his soft, dark eyes never leaving hers, staring straight into her heart or her soul or whatever this thing is that sits at the core of her, hot and tender, aching and desperate for more of him. “Now, I know you don’t appreciate being compared to those gems, and I understand that, Tess, I do. But let me tell you, there’s no need to worry that I might be missing that rush. Every time I look at you, every time you smile at me, every time you say my name...it feels just the same.”

“ _Ezra_ ,” she gasps, resting her shaking hands against his chest—she feels dizzy, unsteady, needs the feel of his soft sweater and the firm flesh beneath to keep her tethered to this moment, to this _planet_.

“ _Yeah_ ,” he sighs lowly, dipping his head, lips twitching up at the corners. “Just like that.”

After all this time, his mouth is finally, blessedly close enough to devour—when the lock beeps, and the door slides open.

He jolts back, hand tearing from her skin to reach for a pistol he isn’t wearing; bereft, Tess blinks and struggles to catch her breath, turning to find Cee’s grinning face framed in the open doorway.

The girl turns and calls over her shoulder, “You’re right, Niamh, they’re in here. Not making out, though.” She eyes them both, grin widening. “Not _yet_ , anyway.”

Tess clears her throat, prying her fingers out of Ezra’s sweater, letting him take a fumbling step back.

He smooths his hand against his thigh, then reaches up to scratch his jaw. “Hey, little bird...” he murmurs, and she’s secretly a little pleased to hear that he sounds about as breathless as she feels. “You all finished for the day?”

“Sure,” the girl says, looking far too pleased with herself. “Are _you?_ ”

“How did you get in here?” Tess asks, not even sounding half so authoritative as she was hoping for.

“Niamh loaned me eir badge,” she says, holding up the treacherous piece of plastic. “What? It was either that or e’d have to leave the desk.”

“Give it back, please.”

The girl rolls her eyes, but leaves to do just that.

Ezra watches her go for a moment, then glances at Tess. Even through his tan, she can see his cheeks are flushed. “I, uh... Sorry about that.”

She takes a steadying breath, trying not to miss the feeling of his skin against hers too badly, not right now, and shakes her head. “I’m not.” His eyes snap to hers, and she smiles, and for once she recognizes the way it makes him shudder. She thinks she could get addicted to that. “I’d like to...finish that conversation sometime. Soon.”

He nods quickly, beginning to smile, too. “Yeah, me too. Maybe...over dinner?”

“That sounds nice.”

“Yeah.” He nods again, then gestures vaguely toward the door. “I, uh... We should... Before they, uh...”

“Yeah,” she agrees, and follows him back out to reception, where Cee and Niamh eye them with knowing, cheesy, shit-eating grins. Tess tries to school her expression into something serious and professional, but the thought of dinner with Ezra has her feeling too nervous and giggly to quite manage it. Still, she nods toward Cee, and asks, “You have your spare key? I’ve got some work to finish up here, so if there’s anything back at my place you’ll need, feel free to grab it.”

“Thanks, boss. I _think_ I’m okay...” The girl turns to Ezra, and asks, “How long are you home for?”

He glances at Tess for a split second, before turning his attention back to his adopted daughter. “A while, I think. Didn’t like being gone so long; told the service I’d like to stick around Aphelia for a month or two, to make up for it.”

“Creamy,” Cee says, looking so pleased that Tess wonders if much of the worry she’d been picking up from the teenager lately had just been about his long absence. It’s gonna be good to have him back, for more than her own selfish reasons. “I should still be okay, but is it alright if I drop by sometime if I need stuff?”

“Of course,” Tess says. She hopes Ezra knows she means both of them when she says, “You know you’re always welcome.”

From the look on his face, she’s pretty sure he does. “Thanks again for keeping an eye on her for me.”

“I think it’s mostly the other way around,” she says, only half joking. If it weren’t for Cee, she’d just about never have any company over, nor the motivation to clean and keep her pantry stocked with anything more exciting than dehydrated noodles. She’s always been one to value having her own space, but getting to carve out a piece of it to share with the girl has proven a valuable thing, too. “I’m glad to do it all the same. Anyway, you gotta let her come over on Ninth days; we’ve got that serial to watch.”

“Oh, _yeah_ ,” she agrees, grabbing Ezra’s sleeve, wide-eyed. “We _can’t_ miss it.”

“That good, huh?” he asks, smiling as he looks from her to Tess and back. “Something I should watch?”

“ _So_ good,” Cee gushes, nodding her head eagerly. “C’mon, I’ll tell you about it on the way home.”

“Alright,” he says, his grin stunningly bright as he turns to Tess one last time. “I’ll, uh... I’ll comm you about dinner.”

“Looking forward to it,” she tells him honestly, biting her lip. “You two get home safe.”

“We will,” he promises, nodding his head. Then he turns and slings his arm around Cee’s shoulders, guiding her out the door. “So, what’s this thing called?”

“It’s _The Seven Sisters_ ,” she begins, “except there’s only six of them, right? The youngest has gone _missing_...”

The door slides closed behind them, and Tess watches them go.

“ _So..._ ” Niamh sounds almost _rabid_ , voice just about overflowing with interest and delight. “ _Dinner_ , huh?”

“Mm-hm.” She turns to em, tries to keep her expression neutral, but she can’t quite suppress her smile. “It’s the meal after lunch; you should try it sometime.”

E grins. “Oh, you got jokes today? Must’a found somethin’ _real_ special on those shelves in the back.”

“Sure did,” she says, nodding. “We’re fresh out of the tropical stims.”

“ _Ugh_ ,” e groans, pulling a face. “Thank Kevva for _that_.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Tess laughs. “Anyway, let Soren know I’m almost finished, and then the floor is his.”

Niamh hums in response, typing the message into the screen before em without even needing to watch eir fingers. “Sure, sure. But the second you clock out, best believe you’re telling me _all_ about what tall, dark, and handsome said back there.”

She groans, but it’s true; for the life of her, she’s never been able to keep a secret from em. “ _Fine_. But not here. You free to grab a drink tonight?”

“Oh, I’m clearing my schedule for this one,” e laughs. “First round’s on _me_.”

“Yeah, yeah, alright,” Tess mutters, turning and heading back to the supply room. She only gives herself a moment, lets her hand drift up to touch the cheek he’d held, taking a deep breath and remembering the way it had felt. Then she sighs, and swipes her badge, and gets back to work.


	6. 29 Chroma St, Unit 4, New Amphora, Aphelia. Lariat System. The Fringe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot tell you how excited I am to finally be done with this fucking chapter. Oh my god. No idea where all my former motivation and focus fled to, but y'know what, we made it, we're here, it's all gonna be okay. Thank you all so much for the kind comments and messages, and for being so patient with me while I stumbled my way through this one. It really means so much to me that you guys really care about this weird little fic about a weird little movie, so thank you.
> 
> You may have noticed I updated the chapter count! I've been planning on having just one more after this for a while now, but I didn't want to box myself in before I knew for certain. It definitely feels to me like the logical conclusion, but I do have a few more ideas and snippets for these characters—scenes that didn't quite make the cut, or that occur outside of or after this particular storyline, and at some point I'd like to post those in a separate work, so please keep an eye out for that!
> 
> I've also been slowly cobbling together a blog dedicated to my writing, where I'll likely be crossposting that sort of thing ~~as well as talking about my original work, if anyone has any interest in that???~~ I am, as you've seen, a very slow writer so I can't promise I'll be taking on many requests, but I would love to chat about headcanons and characters and story ideas and the like, so if that sounds fun to you feel free to come find me over at [bittercoldbrew](https://bittercoldbrew.tumblr.com/)! And if not, no pressure, I'm just glad you're here!
> 
> I think that's all I have for now and I am very tired of making words with my brain, I've been working on this chapter for close to 12 hours today. So! I'll shut up now! But please do let me know what you think, and I hope you enjoy!

Ezra taps the buzzer once, quickly, and takes a deep breath. A moment passes, then the sound of Tess’s voice calls something—not clear enough to make out the words through the door, but it doesn’t sound like “fuck off”, so that's good enough for him.

He takes a step back and runs his hand through his hair, grown longer than he's accustomed to, verging on unruly. He shouldn’t feel nervous, knows it’s stupid, but it’s been two days since he last saw her—since he all but professed himself a lovestruck fool and just about lost any good sense he had, left alone with her in a supply closet for a few minutes, and it surely would’ve been a time to remember but wasn’t precisely how he’d intended any of that to go... Well, anyhow, it’s been a couple days and they haven’t had much chance to talk beyond sketching out vague dinner plans for next Third day, and she’d said she was interested in pursuing where they left off, but what if she’s changed her mind? What if she’s realized just how little someone like him could ever hope to offer someone like her?

He shakes his head, wipes his sweaty palm against his pants. He’s being stupid and selfish and he needs to cut this out; he knows better, knows Tess isn’t the kinda gal to play games like that, to not know her own mind, for one. For two, that’s _not_ what he came here for, and he needs to not make this about himself, needs to be able to offer her that, at least.

But whatever she’s doing in there, it’s taking her a minute. He hisses out a breath, glances around at her little balcony to distract himself. She’s in a similar sort of prefabbed apartment stack as his and Cee’s, though an older one, just around the corner from the clinic and thus closer to the city center where Aphelia’s first human residents had set up shop. The big yellow "4" painted on the scorched metal walkway has faded and speckled over the years, but she’s got a woven welcome mat laid out before the door that covers most of it anyway, and this structure only has one habitation per level so it doesn’t particularly matter. Most of the buildings on her end of Chroma Street are a little taller, but she has the top floor here, with only the one switchback ramp leading down to the lower levels and the street. At the other end, two seats and a little table fold out from the half-wall that serves as a railing, and he gets so caught up in a daydream about sitting out here with her sometime—drinking tea, or something stronger, maybe, and watching the burgundy sunsets together—that he almost misses the sound of the door sliding open. He whips his head around, spots Tess in the doorway.

She’d been in the _shower_ , he realizes, struck by a pang of guilt as he takes in her wet hair, her half-dressed state, the oversized cardigan she’s folding around herself to hide the sight of her tiny pink shorts and cropped black shirt and soft brown belly underneath. He should’ve called first, should have checked that his presence here would even be welcome tonight; he’d been so outta sorts by what Cee had told him when he got home, by the state she said she left Tess in, that he hadn’t really been thinking straight.

But he takes one look at her face—her creased brow and puffy cheeks and red-rimmed, watery eyes—and thinks he’s made the right choice.

“Hi, you,” he says softly, offering her a gentle smile.

“ _Ezra_..?” Her voice is raw and raspy from crying as she blinks at him, and it makes something in his chest _ache_. “Wha—What are you doing here?”

“A little bird told me you...lost a patient today,” he says softly, taking careful note of the way she winces at the words, as though even this is enough to hurt her right now. Tenderhearted, his Kyrie is. He doesn’t wanna let anything hurt her ever again, but he’s not sure how to protect her from something like this, can only hope he’s not making things worse by showing up at her door unannounced. “I thought I’d come by and offer my sincere condolences, and perhaps a drop or two of this fine cordial,” he tells her, lifting up the bottle of quality hooch he’d brought, a little something he’d been saving for a while, “and my...company, if you happen to desire it.”

She stares at him in silence for a moment, her lips parted, her gaze moving from him to the bottle and back again. He can see her eyes well up with tears, so Ezra sidles a step closer, moving slowly, like she’s some skittish crosscat he doesn’t want to frighten off. And then, suddenly, she’s stumbling through the doorway, grabbing the front of his shirt, pressing her face tight against his chest.

“Oh, _Tess_ ,” he sighs, holding her close, folding his body around hers as best he can. “I’m so sorry, sweet girl.”

She cries quiet, but her shoulders lurch with heaving gasps. So Ezra rubs her back soothingly, slips his hand up to the back of her neck and squeezes gently, tells her it’s alright and he's sorry and he knows it hurts and she can cry all she needs to, says any comforting thing he can think of until her body stills and her breaths come easy, or something close to it.

"Does this mean you'd like me to stay?" he asks into her damp hair, and she nods her head firmly without peeling herself off him, and if he weren't so damn worried for her he'd be delighted by how goddamn cute she is. "Alright. C'mon, sweetheart, let's get you inside."

He keeps his arms around her and guides her back into her apartment, letting the door slide shut behind them.

"I didn't expect this to be so _hard_ ," she mumbles against his shirt.

"Which part?" he asks, keeping his voice low and gentle, smoothing his hand over her hair.

She shakes her head slowly. "I dunno, just... I mean, I've lost patients before, of _course_ I have, but it wasn't... It's _never_ easy, but I...never _knew them_. Usually I'd never even _seen_ 'em before. Never heard 'em _laugh_. Never...spent my whole lunch break at their bedside, tryin' to get 'em to eat with me, praying we could get one more day of solid food in before the toxins destroyed their stomach. I don't... I don't know how to..."

He hugs her a little tighter, says, “I’m sorry, Tess,” knowing it ain’t much to offer her but hoping she can tell how much he means it.

“It’s my own fault,” she huffs. “Shouldn’t get attached. Shoulda known better.”

“No, Tess... There’s no part of this that’s your fault. Not any of it.”

She shakes her head again, pushing back from him but keeping her eyes lowered, her face turned away. “It’s _stupid_ ,” she gasps, wiping at her face with both hands, then gesturing in the vague direction of the clinic. “ _I’m_ — We got— Got a hundred long-timers in there and they’re _all_ gonna go, I can’t—I _can’t_ just keep falling to pieces like this, not for all of ‘em.”

He sets the bottle down on the table by the door, then reaches out to hold her face between his hands—her eye implant and his prosthetic on the one side, then his hand, so pale against her dark skin, and her green-and-brown iris on the other—and makes her look at him. “Says who?” he asks, making it clear with his tone that anyone foolish enough to suggest such a thing would have him to answer to.

“I...” she starts, her voice breaking, trailing off as her eyes start to water all over again. She presses them closed, reaching up with her right hand to hold onto his wrist. “ _Ezra..._ ”

He shakes his head, stroking her cheeks for a lingering moment while he thinks over what he needs to say to her, and how best to say it.

“I used to think the Sanctuaries were a joke,” he reminds her, rubbing his thumb against the corner of her eye, brushing away the tear that leaks out. “Thought they were a...pathetic way to end a life, thought I’d be better off to lose myself to the Green. And I was a _fool_ to think it, you hear me? Found myself starin’ down the barrel of just such an end, and saw it was a _wretched_ way to go. And now I’m here, lookin’ at you, and I think there’d be no finer thing than to spend my last days with someone like you workin’ to stretch them as far as they’ll go, and grieving when they’re done. Okay? So please, Tess, don’t apologize for doing so. I don’t know if there’s anything like an afterlife, or a soul, or any of that; but if there is, I know your friend’s is better off because you cared. Alright?”

Her face sort of _crumples_ as he talks, and he worries he’s saying too much, making things worse; but then she sucks in a shaky breath and opens her eyes again and gives him a little nod. “... _Alright_.”

“Alright,” he echoes, and rubs her cheeks again, tucks a curl of hair back behind her ear, and straightens up. “Now. Have you eaten?”

She frowns slightly, surprised and a little confused by the question, and shakes her head softly. “I... I don’t think I...”

He hums, not entirely sure where that sentence was headed but not supposing it really matters, and grabs up the bottle again. “I’ve been warned off of imbibing this on an empty stomach; supposed to have quite the kick. So why don’t we go see if there’s something I can throw together for us first, hm?”

“You’re gonna _cook_ for me?” she asks, turning to follow him around the couch and across the front room to the kitchen; even though it’s only half there, the hint of a tease in Tess’s voice is enough to warm his heart.

“I’m not so bad at it as Cee would have you believe,” he tells her, setting the bottle down on the kitchen counter, and going to poke around in her pantry containers. “I’ve lived much of my life off nothing but slurry and bushbread, so I won’t pretend to have a palate of any particular refinement... But I do alright, in a pinch.”

“Is that right?” she asks softly, settling into one of the stools to watch, evidently content to give him free reign of her space without question. The thought warms him more than it ought.

“That’s right,” he says, spotting quite a few of those dehydrated noodles she likes so much and grabbing a couple packs. It seems a good place to start, at any rate, so he moves over to the refrigeration unit to take a look. “At least, I hope it is. Guess we’ll find out in a minute, huh?”

She chuckles softly, and even if it is punctuated with a little sniffle, he takes it as a good sign. There’s a carton of poultry-hybrid eggs in the fridge, and plenty of fresh greens, and a round of protein that should fry up just fine. He’s honestly a little sick at just the sight of mushrooms, after Piazzi, but he knows Tess likes ‘em, so he grabs some of those, too, and heads over to the range plate with his spoils.

“What is this you’ve brought me?” she asks softly, and he glances over his shoulder to find her sliding the bottle along the counter, closer to herself so she can squint at the label. The script is an uncommon one, even way out here, a language that he himself can only half speak and can’t read a lick of, so he isn’t surprised she doesn’t know it.

“It’s some of that, uh, fermented flower rice wine stuff they cook up on Planet Seven,” he tells her, grabbing a pot and pan out of the cabinet. “Don’t quite recall the proper name.”

“ _Oh_ ,” she gasps, sounding just as delighted as he’d hoped she would. “This is— Oh, I’ve _had_ this before, it’s _creamy_. Goes down way too smooth, then knocks you right on your ass. It’s... Arnav pulled out a couple bottles, once, when we were laid over with a static storm outside of Rholeon. Did I tell you about that?”

“Mm-hm. Said you tried to get...what was it, Fede? Tried to get ‘im plastered but he drank you all under the table, is that right?”

“ _Yeah_ ,” she sighed, and when he looks again she’s smiling softly at the bottle. “I... Where did you _get_ this?”

“On Seven,” he admits, keeping his back to her and pretending to be deeply invested in the rate at which the water was heating. He's got no desire to lie to her, but he had hoped she'd be too distracted by circumstance to notice, to ask, to make him own up to this. “When I first went out there. You told me that story, so I took a detour and procured some.”

It’d been one of his longer trips, and still the bleakest, running batches of medical supplies direct from her Sanctuary to a smattering of the lonely outposts on the Lariat’s furthest and most desolate planet. It's barely more than a moon, almost constantly shadowed from the sun’s light by its closest celestial neighbors, Kikur and Piazzi. The only two bright spots he’d found on that run had been the tiny, delicate flowers that bloomed from what little radiation Kikur occasionally reflected back at them, and the sound of Tess’s voice over the comms, clicking on every so many hours to make sure he was spending enough time in front of the shuttle’s solar lamp.

“That was _ages_ ago,” she murmurs, enough of a hint of suspicion in her tone that he’s sure to busy himself with chopping veggies, a believable reason not to turn her way. He _is_ always extra careful around sharp tools these days, to be fair; even wielding the knife in his left hand, he's a bit uneasy at the possibility of doing damage to any of his precious few remaining fingers. “Ezra, this bottle is _unopened_. You’ve just been holding it since then?”

“I...” He clears his throat, gives himself a moment to consider his words carefully. “It was...for you. Intended it to be a Loop Day gift, but I figured you could benefit more from a little quality intoxication this evening.”

“A ‘ _Loop Day gift’_ ,” she repeats, her tone uncertain. “Is that...even a thing?”

“Oh, I doubt it,” he chuckles, hoping it doesn’t sound as nervous as he feels. The Aphelian year is a regimented thing; ten-day weeks, split into eight three-week months, with four two-month seasons, give or take a bit. The extra day leftover by all that structure sits in its own spot on the calendar, and the whole damn planet just...takes the day off. Even Tess’ll only be working a half shift, and it’ll be their first Loop Day, hers and his and Cee’s. He doesn’t know much about the customs, but from what he’s heard it’s a time of rest and reflection for some, of vice and debauchery for others. There isn't likely to be much tradition for gift-giving in the midst of a planet-wide day of decadence, but it had seemed to him like the right thing to do, even if the kid called him sappy for it.

“I did the math,” he admits, adding a touch more salt to the pot, “and Cee double-checked it so it’s probably good. Seems the last Loop Day was right around the time you found us above BG. Wanted to commemorate that somehow, sort of a...‘thanks for saving us and letting us stalk you out to the Lariat’ kinda thing, I guess.”

She’s silent for a long moment after that, and he tries not to fret, tries not to do anything but stir the pot of food, praying it finishes up soon and gives him an out.

His life has rarely contained much opportunity for presents, given or received. The kid’s proven easy enough to figure out; there’s a store in the city center that sells nothing but books, imported from all over the galaxy. For her birthday he’d taken her down there and let her have her fill of the place—she wandered around wide-eyed for hours, and merely the chance to be there and look at it all would’ve likely been enough, but the expression on her face when he told her she could just have all three of the titles she’d been trying to pick between was a sight he’d cherish for the rest of his days.

But for _Tess?_ He hadn’t known what he could possibly give her that could amount to all she’s done for them, and this had seemed a paltry offering in that respect, but now... It’s too much, isn’t it? _He’s_ too much, or not enough, or _something_...

Well, it’s out of his hands now. Either she appreciates the gesture, or she doesn’t, and there ain’t shit he can do about it anymore.

“Ezra, that’s... I’m not...” she begins, her voice tight and a little watery, and his stomach flips over itself but he tries not to let it show. But then, as always, she surprises him. “This is...the sweetest gift anyone’s ever given me.”

He snaps his head around, and she’s sitting there, cradling the bottle in front of her with both hands. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she sighs, and looks up, meets his eyes with another sniffle and the softest smile he thinks he’s ever seen. “Admittedly, the bar’s not very high. But _thank you_ , Ezra.”

He smiles in return, tells her, “You’re most welcome, Tess,” and turns back to the noodles, which are, thankfully, just about done. He cracks a couple eggs against the hard plane of the back of his prosthetic hand, lets their contents drop into the broth to poach as the rest finishes up.

“You can’t let us drink the whole thing tonight, okay?” she asks, and he huffs a laugh that she thinks _he’ll_ be the responsible one, of the two of them. “Gotta save some of this for Loop Day.”

“I can get us another bottle in time,” he points out, opening up a couple cabinets until he finds bowls and glasses. It's just about two weeks out, more than enough time for a quick jump to Seven and back. Everybody always needs something, and he’s certain he can come up with a reason for the shuttle service to pay him to head out there again; he'd requested a break, sure, but he's shoveled enough shit for them that they'll give him just about any route he asks for. And if not, hell, he’ll foot the bill for the fuel himself if it’s something Tess wants. “We don’t have to ration it out.”

“I know, but this bottle’s special.”

“Alright,” he says, both unable and unwilling to stop his smile as he portions out the food. “But I’ll try to get us another, all the same. The brewer I met out there, turns out my brother gave him a real square deal once, and he seemed to think that meant he owed me somethin’. Wouldn’t mind to settle up.”

“Oh, yeah?”

He hums an affirmative and turns to her. “We eating in here, or on the couch?”

Tess opens her mouth to say something, slipping off the stool, but then stops and looks down at herself. “I, uh...” she starts, fumbling to quickly do up the buttons of the cardigan that’s fallen open again. “I should probably put some pants on first.”

Ezra bites the inside of his cheek, letting his eyes trace down along the generous curves of her thighs, just for a moment. “Only if you want to, Kyrie,” he says, selecting his words with care, not wanting to offend or scare her off. “But please don’t bother on account of me.”

She glances up from her buttons to meet his eye, and her lips curl upwards, somewhere between embarrassed and amused. “...Alright. Here, let me help with that.”

He hands her one of the bowls, and she takes it and the bottle out to the front room while he follows along with the glasses and chopsticks, and they get themselves settled on the deep, comfortable couch that he knows to be the pride of all her furnishings. He still thinks often of the day she’d found this thing, so soon after he’d begun his current employment and before he’d paid off his shuttle in full—she’d commed him out of the blue, asking if he’d be willing to bend the rules of his contract just a little, to put the shuttle to personal use and help her haul something she found on the side of the road. Well, he’d wrapped up that route so quick he left his passenger dizzy, and rushed out to meet her. He’d never seen anything half so regal as Tess Stone perched on the back of a discarded couch beside a couple of overfull wastebins, staking her claim, eyes closed and face turned peaceably to the sun as she awaited his arrival.

Now, though, she looks small and weary, curled up in that too-big sweater and propped against the armrest, cradling the bowl of noodles in her lap and peering into it like it might somehow offer her the answers she seeks. He cracks open the bottle of wine and pours them each a few fingers’ worth, hoping once again that his choice to come here tonight might indeed offer her a little respite from the heartache.

“This smells great, Ezra. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet, it might be terrible.”

She huffs a laugh, snatches a pair of chopsticks off the table, scoops up a huge bite and stuffs it in her mouth. Then she gasps, turns her head away, waving her hand in front of her mouth. “‘S _hot!_ ”

“ _Yeah_ ,” he laughs, shaking his head at her. “What did you _expect?_ ”

“ _Shu’ up_ ,” she grumbles, swatting at his shoulder, trying to swallow. “I was makin’ a _point_.”

“You were certainly making _somethin’_ ,” he concedes, which earns him another swat. “Ow.”

“You’re an _ass_ ,” she says, her accent comin' through strong in her annoyance, makin' her sound _extra_ core-worldy; but he's not one to pour salt in the wounds of the undeserving, and she ain't exactly _wrong_ , so for once he keeps his mouth shut. “ _But_...you’re a better cook than I expected.”

“Yeah, well, it helps that you singed off half your tastebuds first.”

“My tastebuds are _fine_ , thank you.” She meets his eye, and there’s that warmth in her expression, the light she’s been missing since she opened the door for him tonight. “And... _thank you_ , Ez. For dinner, and...for coming to check on me.”

He dips his head—half nod, half excuse to not let her see how strongly her praise and gratitude effect him. “You’re most welcome, Tess. Now, c’mon. Let’s get you drunk.”

She accepts the glass from him with a smile and a nod toward his own. “Only if I can take you down with me.”

“Oh, anytime, sweetheart,” he says, and means it, grabbing his drink and knocking it gently against hers. “To your friend.”

She sniffs and nods, and lifts the glass a little higher. “To Lonnie,” she declares, and he joins her in taking a swig.

She was right, of course—the pale purple liquid goes down as smooth as vine-silk, a subtle, honeysuckle sweetness that fills his mouth, with so clean a finish he’d doubt it’d been there at all if not for the warmth that trickles down behind his ribcage and settles in his belly. “... _Oh_ ,” he sighs, and a smile spreads slow across Tess’s features.

“I know, right?”

He hums in approval and takes another sip, glancing at the bottle again and making a mental note to pick up a whole case of the stuff when he heads out to Seven. “Good as you remember?”

“ _Better_ ,” she tells him softly, and as much as he knows she loved her former coworkers, he can’t help but hope that the company might have a little something to do with that, maybe.

He grins, and takes a (much more careful) bite of his own noodles, pleased to find that she wasn’t just being nice and they actually aren’t half bad.

Even before he’d been mutinied and marooned on Bakhroma's green moon, with no company save for his vacuous, inarticulate Number Two, Ezra was never much of one for silences. The inside of his head is not often a hospitable place, and he’s a little too prone to find himself caught in the grip of an unshakable melancholy if there’s nothing to draw him out of there. But with Tess...

Well, he’s seen firsthand that she can be a woman of action, a force to be reckoned with; but at her core, Tess Stone is a creature of stillness, of quiet, of watchfulness and patience. He figures it has something to do with a youth spent as little more than a prop in her family’s performance, but she is often content to observe rather than participate. Sometimes, on his longer routes, when he comms her in a foul mood, she tells him stories—tales of her adventures as a doe-eyed Junior MT fresh out of certification, or witty anecdotes of the ways she thwarted her parents’ many attempts to bring her back into the fold. Other times, though, she says nothing at all, just waits him out, leaves the comm clicked on while she goes about her evening and lets him be soothed by the soft background sounds of her chores or simply the steady rhythm of her breaths.

He hasn’t any clue how she knows which to utilize—some MT intuition, perhaps, or just her own good sense—but it always works, and he’s started to appreciate a bit of silence, so long as she’s there to share in it with him.

But the quiet that settles over them tonight, with her favorite noodles on her beloved couch, feels a little _too_ profound. He glances over, sees that she’s not really eating, just swirling the ends of her chopsticks in the broth, a faraway look in her eyes and a frown drawing her brows together. This is a silence that needs breaking.

“I ever tell you about my brother?”

She blinks and looks up at him, expression cycling from morose to surprised to interested in an instant. “I... I know you did some work with him, years ago,” she says, a little hesitant. A hint of a smirk tugs at the corner of her lips, and she adds, “And I know he did a favor for a tōji on Planet Seven.”

“So not much, huh?” he jokes, pleased to see he’s already distracted her some, that she’s taking another bite of her food.

She hums an assent, chewing, and tilts her head to the side, fixing him with a contemplative stare. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, Ezra,” she says, gesturing toward herself with the chopsticks. “Especially not because I’m being all tragic and gloomy, here.”

“You’re no such thing, Kyrie, and I’m...” He hesitates a moment, trying to think of how best to say this. “I am unaccustomed to company that shows an interest in my family and upbringing for any reason other than malice. If I’ve seemed...unforthcoming, it’s due to a lack of practice, not an unwillingness to share with you.”

“Oh.” She takes a slow sip of her wine, considering this, then nods. “Are you...the eldest, then?”

“What makes you say so?” he asks with a laugh—not that she’s _wrong_ , of course, but he’s pretty sure he never told her so and he’s curious to know what about him gives it away.

“Hm, well...” She doesn’t try to be subtle about it, just reaches over with her chopsticks and grabs a mushroom out of his bowl, regards it for a thoughtful moment before popping it in her mouth. “You put these in for me, even though you don’t like ‘em.”

“That’s just bein’ considerate,” he shrugs, leaning over to give himself a better angle, then plucks a slice of protein out of her bowl, as compensation.

She laughs and leans back, fixing him with a contemplative look, tapping a finger against her chin. “You are...accustomed to being the leader,” she tells him, speaking slowly. “Not because you like it, it’s just the role you fall into. But you don’t get _mad_ when people don’t listen to you, just...grumpy and resigned, like you’re used to it.”

Ezra opens his mouth to say something in response, realizes he doesn’t have any idea where to start, closes it again, and frowns. “...Huh.”

“You asked,” she says with a shrug, and steals another of his mushrooms. “D’you have more than the one brother?”

He clears his throat, shakes his head at the ease with which she can, apparently, see right through him, and reaches for the bottle to top off their drinks. “Only one of those. The rest’re all girls.”

"Oh, yeah? How many?"

"Six. Eight of us in total."

She whistles. "That seems like a lot. Is that a lot for San Bexar?"

"That's a lot for _anywhere_ ," he laughs, surprised she even remembers where he's from; he's fairly sure he only mentioned it the once. "But we had...something of a homestead to take care of, and not enough to pay anyone to help out with it, so they had us instead. Or tried to, anyway. Was a full two years after me before my mother conceived again, with Patience. After that, she only ever got a few months' reprieve between babies, at least for the bulk of us. Felicity was next, then Charity. Temperance, after the old man’s drinking got worse, though she hated the name so we always called her Percy. The first time he left was after Elodie. Gone about a year, which was a nice break for ma. Suspect he went off to whore around a bit, tried to get himself another son somewhere else and it didn't take. Or maybe he visited a clinic or somethin', since they had Hollis less than a year after he came back. But he was born with a bad leg; grew out of it, but it seemed to drive the old man off again. We all thought that was the last time, but he turned back up about four years later and gave us Gracie, then was gone for good before she was even born."

“ _Kevva_ ,” she breathes, and shakes her head. “Sounds like you were better off without him.”

“We were, indeed.” He scoops his last few mushrooms into her bowl, slurps down the rest of the broth, and sets his bowl aside. “Even so, not much money in farming, not on Bexar. Soon as I could, I scrounged up enough for a piece of shit skimmer and went off to try my luck elsewhere.”

“Ahh,” she nods, and he’s glad to watch her empty her bowl, as well. When she grabs her drink and settles back, she scoots a little closer to him. “And you took Hollis with you?”

“Oh, not at first,” he says. The prosthetic isn’t always much more than a tool for him, if he’s honest; but now, as it lets him keep a grip on his glass while he drapes his better arm around her shoulders, he’s more than grateful he wore it tonight. “He wasn’t more than a kid; shit, neither was _I_. But every time I brought a little money home, he’d beg me to bring him along, let him help.”

“And you gave in, huh?” she asks, leaning her head against his arm. “You big softie.”

“Oh, you’re one to talk,” he teases back.

“I am,” she says with a proud tilt of her chin. “I’m an expert on softies, and you, dear Ezra, are one of us.”

He snorts a laugh, shakes his head. “Maybe for you and the kid, I suppose.”

“ _Yeah_ ,” she agrees, a curiously serious expression on her face. “Sometimes I think...”

“What?” he asks when she doesn’t finish the thought, and she pinches her tongue between her teeth and turns away.

“Nothin’, it’s stupid.”

“Oh, well now you _have_ to tell me.” When her only response is an aggrieved sigh, he leans in, gives her his most innocent expression. “Please, Tess?”

She sighs again, but answers, hesitantly, “Sometimes...I think it’s a shame, that no one else ever gets to see how sweet you are. But then... Well, it isn’t very charitable of me, I guess. But I... I like that no one knows you like I do.”

“...Oh.” He draws a little nearer, curls his arm a little closer around her. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I mean, no one knows _me_ as well as you do,” she shrugs, dropping her gaze to stare into her drink, her fingers absently drumming against the glass. “It...seems fair.”

He lets his hand drift over her shoulders, coming to rest right along the collar of her sweater, so he can brush his thumb against the warm, soft skin at the base of her neck. “I like it, too.”

She glances up at him through lowered lashes, shy. Gorgeous. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Good,” she declares, and knocks back her drink. “‘Cause I’m not telling anyone else about this shit.”

“Good,” he agrees, liking the sound of that—a little _too_ much, perhaps. “Me neither.”

He follows her suit, finishes off his wine; and when he offers to refill hers, she waves him off, so he declines as well. He doesn’t think he really feels it, much—mostly just feels warm and maybe a little extra horny, but both could just as easily be chalked up to the company he’s in—but he’s got a suspicion that, were he to stand up just now, he might find himself mistaken about that. So he just settles back against the cushions, and Tess stretches her folded-up, mostly-bare legs from beneath to beside her so she can lean into him some more, laying her head on his shoulder. With a contented sigh, Ezra rests his cheek against her soft curls.

The posture feels familiar, easy, as things tend to be with her. He doesn't know if he's ever felt so drawn to another person before, as though everything in him has ached for something in her, something with such a powerful gravitational force that his whole life has been little more than a poorly-charted, ambling trajectory to pull him into her orbit.

Or maybe that's just the wine talking.

They’ve had a couple drinks together before, but always out in public, or with the kid around. He’s seen her unwind, seen how she lets herself be a tick more physically affectionate once she’s able to set the mantle of her profession, and the expectations it bears, aside. But this feels...different, somehow. Less a general, drunken handsy-ness, more...focused. Intent. Especially when she reaches across him, grabs his prosthetic hand, and draws it closer to herself.

It is no delicate thing, this construct that has become a part of him, but Tess cradles it in her careful, clever hands as though it is more precious than the finest gems. He has grown accustomed to the ersatz limb, the strangeness of sensory feedback devoid of any true sensation, the expanded range of ability it allows him whenever he deigns to wear it. But that is not to say he’s become _comfortable_ with it, or with the ways other people see it and quickly avert their gaze, or, worse, stare for _too_ long; he would certainly never let anyone else touch it. Yet Tess is an exception in many ways, and she runs her fingers along the delicate web of micro-brazed interfacing, traces the seams between carbon fiber and synthetic polymer, with a kind of delighted reverence that makes his breath hitch in his chest. He hasn’t quite gotten to the point yet where he feels the sort of fondness for it that she displays, but he thinks, if she keeps this up, he might someday get there.

“You were tellin’ me about your brother,” she reminds him, her voice soft.

“I...suppose I was,” he says, blinking, tearing his gaze away from the hypnotic movement of her fingers along his prosthesis, trying to remember what he’d been saying before she so wholly derailed his train of thought. “What would you like to know?”

“Hmm. Does he look like you?”

“Suppose so. Enough that the tōji mistook me for him at first. We’ve all got the nose.”

“Good,” she says, fixing him with a grin, and reaches up to curl a finger through his streak of white hair. “What about this?”

“No, that’s mine alone.”

She hums softly, tracing her finger across his brow and down his temple to his cheek, tracing the line of the curving scar there. “What happened here?”

“Knife fight,” he answers automatically, a reflexive response more than anything else. “You should see the other guy.”

“Uh-huh. And what really happened?”

He huffs a laugh, reaches up to catch her hand with his prosthetic, brushes his lips against her soft skin and watches in surprise as she weaves her fingers with his artificial ones. “Fell out of a tree,” he admits.

“ _What?_ On your _face?_ ”

“Broke my collarbone while I was at it,” he says with a grin. “Got me out of a month’s chores.”

“ _Gods_ , Ez. How are you still alive?”

“Just lucky, I reckon.”

“Yeah, well, you better stay that way,” she tells him, her voice going soft and solemn. “I can’t... Can’t lose you, too.”

He pulls her closer, curls his hand around the collar of her sweater, resting the backs of his fingers against the crook of her neck. “I’m not goin’ anywhere, Tess.”

Her pulse thrums softly against his fingers, her chest rises and falls with two heavy breaths before she speaks, so quiet he almost doesn’t hear her. “... _You promise?_ ”

He _has_ loved before, of course, and been loved, and _made_ love, and each person, each time has been unique. He has always been, first and foremost, an opportunist, generally happy to reciprocate any affection offered to him, in whatever form it may take. But _this_... This feels like something else entirely. He’s so fond of her it feels like _madness_ , utterly delighted every time she laughs at one of his stupid jokes or asks for his opinion on the most inconsequential thing. He’s never before found himself so desperate for the ping of a comm unit, for the scent of sweet rosemary and bergamot that means she’s near. He’d give her anything, would slice off his other arm if she were to ask for it—or, at least, would have Cee do it for him.

“I promise,” he says, and _means_ it. There’s nothing on this planet or any other, in all of Kevva or below it, that could keep him from coming back to her.

She turns her head, presses her face into his neck, and he feels her quaking breath against his skin, a sure sign that he’s let the conversation drift a little too close to too painful for her to bear right now. He squeezes her tight, tries to think of something, anything at all, to say to distract her.

“I ever tell you about the, uh...the time me and Hollis got infested with channel rats?”

She huffs a laugh, and he can feel her lips curl up in a grin for a brief, incandescent moment before she pulls back a tick and rests against his shoulder again. “Once or twice, yeah. But you should tell me again.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to bore you.”

“You’d never bore me, Ez.”

He turns and angles his head to look at her, sees that her eyes have drifted closed but a smirk still tugs at the corner of her mouth. “I assure you, I can be quite dull.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Well, nor should you in most respects, but in this, at least, I am in earnest.”

“Nah, it’s not possible,” she murmurs—a little sleepily, he suspects. She shifts a bit, getting herself comfortable, one hand still folded around his prosthesis, the other drifting over to rest against his side. “Couldn’t bore me if you tried. Love you too much.”

Ezra stills, breath snagging in his chest, waiting for her to notice what she’s just said and walk it back. But she only squirms a little, eyes still closed, finding a cozier spot to rest her head.

He keeps his arm around her, holding her tucked against his shoulder so he can turn to face her a little fuller, wets his lips, and asks softly, “You wanna...run that by me again?”

“Hmm?” She seems to move in low-grav, in slow motion, blinking her eyes open, her brow wrinkling in confusion as she mentally reviews what she’s just said. He waits with bated breath, but still the suddenness with which she gasps and sits up straight takes him by surprise. “Oh _. Shit_. Ezra, I didn’t mean—”

Ah. He nods his head, trying not to let her catch sight of how his heart, so recently lodged in his throat, has now plummeted into his bowels instead. “It’s— You don’t have to explain—” he starts, but she’s still talking, the words rushing out of her mouth faster than she seems able to wrangle them.

“I wasn’t supposed to just—blurt it _out_ like that, I just... _Fuck_. I was— I had a fucking _speech_ prepared and _everything_.”

What?

“What?”

She shakes her head, gesturing wildly. “Well, not _prepared_ , exactly, I’m still working on it. Or I was, I guess. Shit. Fuck. I mean, I’ve been...trying to plan what I was gonna _say_ to you, and I’ve been playing it over and over in my head for days and I guess I just— Guess my brain forgot I didn’t actually _say it_ yet, and I just... _ruined_ it. Gods. _Shit_.”

Ezra blinks, trying to make sure he’s following her ambling train of thought correctly, here. “Wait, Tess, hang on—”

“ _Fuck_ ,” she groans. “This isn’t how I meant to— That wine is _very_ strong, and I am _very_ stupid, and I just—”

He leans in and covers her lips with his own, lingering just long enough for her to go still—but when he starts to pull away, she follows after him, those soft, full lips he’s dreamed of so many nights now kissing him in earnest. He sighs into her, and she responds with a low, sweet groan that courses right through him.

She leans back, rests her hand against his cheek, caressing his skin with a tenderness he’s sure he can’t deserve but doesn’t imagine he’ll ever be able to live without. “What I mean to say,” she murmurs, a little breathless but her gaze on him is steady, “is that I love you, Ezra.”

His breath leaves him in a rush, a shudder, and he leans heavily into her touch. “I love you, Tess.”

Her smile is soft but radiant. He’ll never get enough of her—but he’s greedy for her, all the same. He digs his fingers into her hair, and pulls her back to him.

He can’t remember the last time he was kissed so eagerly, so _hungrily_ , and he doesn’t quite understand how she could have been aching just as he had all this time, the both of them too foolish to say anything, but it doesn’t matter now. The only thing that matters is Tess, and her sweet mouth, and the noises she makes as he holds her close and kisses her for all he’s worth. He tries to take a careful stock of what she likes, the different sighs and moans she makes as he gets his hands beneath her sweater and grips her hips, or caresses her silky-soft skin, or slides his fingers over the subtle trace of her ribcage or brushes teasingly against her breasts—but it’s difficult to focus with her hands on _him_ , burying themselves in his hair, tracing along his jaw, slipping down the column of his throat and smoothing across his shoulders and down his chest. He’s usually more composed than this, more in control of himself, but he just got here and he’s already lost in her.

It isn’t until he feels the unsubtle, delectable tug at his waist, that he’s able to lash the last scraps of his good sense together and stop her from undoing his belt. He breaks the kiss, presses his forehead to hers, catches her little searching hands in both of his and draws them up, tucks them against his chest. “Tess, I—” he pants, sucks in a breath. “You’ve had a—rough day, and we’ve both...had a bit to drink.”

She licks her plump, flushed lips, nods her head. “You want me to stop?”

“ _No_ ,” he blurts, shaking his head. “I just...gotta know you’re _sure_. I don’t want you to regret _anything_ we do together, sweet girl.”

“I like it when you call me that,” she _purrs_ , and Ezra has to close his eyes and grit his teeth, take a steadying breath. She slips her hands free of his loose grip to slide up to his shoulders, uses him for leverage as she moves to straddle his legs and settle into his lap. “Only thing I regret, Ez, is not kissing you sooner.”

He looks up at her in wonder. “Then tell me what would you have of me, dear Tess.”

She suppresses a smile, looking down at him with a studious, thoughtful expression. “D’you mean in general, or just right now?”

He lowers his gaze, watches as his hands—both natural and synthetic—slide down along the lengths of her soft and supple thighs, feels her shiver at his touch, sees her skin break out in goose pimples. Her right pupil, when he lifts his gaze to meet hers, has blown wide and dark and intent on him, a hunger there to match his own. “Why don’t we...start with tonight, and see where that leads us?”

Her lips curl upward in a simply delicious grin, and she cups his face in her hands, draws him in for another kiss. “That sounds good to me.”


End file.
